^    H   M^CaU 


MORE 

MASTER= 

SINGERS 


MORE 
MASTERSINGERS 

STUDIES   IN   THE   ART 
OF   MUSIC 


BY 

FILSON    YOUNG 

n 


,' ''/'".:     •  ■' 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Y  G 


PRINTED   BY   WILLIAM    BRENDON   AND   SON,    LTD. 
PLYMOUTH,    ENGLAND,    IQII 


To  MRS.  EARLE 

To  you,  my  dear  friend,  crowned  in  the 
summer  evening  of  your  life  with  the  love 
of  three  generations,  I  can  bring  no  wreath 
or  chaplet.  I  can  only  offer  you  this 
nosegay  picked  from  the  garden  of  the 
arts:  not  from  that  southern  corner,  aglow 
with  colour,  in  which  you  yourself  have 
laboured ;  not  from  the  sombre  groves  of 
learning  and  poetry ;  but  from  that  place 
of  music  where  the  fountain  murmurs  and 
the  blossom  shakes  and  the  wind  sings  in 
the  leaves.  And  you,  who  care  chiefly  that 
life  should  be  earnest,  cari7ig  also  that  it 
should  be  beautiful,  and  holding  in  fellow- 
ship all  true  labourers  in  the  garden  how- 
ever remote  their  corner  or  humble  their 
task,  have  with  your  friendship  made 
fragrant  that  part  of  my  life  in  which  this 
work  was  done ;  therefore  I  bring  it  to  you 
in  homage  and  affection. 

FILSON   YOUNG. 

April,  1911. 


*i95,'j53 


CONTENTS 


Memories  of  a  Cathedral 

The  Place  of  Music  in  Modern  Life 

The  Musician  as  Composer 

The  Musician  as  Interpreter 

The  Musician  as  Hearer 

The  Art  of  the  Conductor    . 

The  Music  of  the  Salon 

The  Old  Age  of  Richard  Wagner 

The  Two  Westminsters  :   With  some 
Music  and  Religion 

Uebussy 


Thoughts  on 


PAGE 

61 

89 

203 
231 


MEMORIES  OF 
A  CATHEDRAL 


•  >  •, 


MEMORIES  OF 
A  CATHEDRAL 


IT  stood,  when  its  mediaeval  builders  planned 
it,  on  the  low  sandstone  banks  at  the  meet- 
ing-point of  two  limpid  rivers  ;  nothing 
much  in  sight  from  it  but  the  collegiate  buildings 
and  school  ;  beside  it  the  old  hall  of  Strangeways 
on  the  slope  to  the  north  ;  the  few  scattered 
cottages  of  the  hamlet  of  Manchester  to  the 
south,  and  beyond,  the  smithy  and  the  river  bank 
and  the  old  arched  bridge  with  the  chapel  on  it, 
the  bridge  that  carried  the  road  over  to  the  west 
country  and  the  sea.  But  many  things  happened 
in  the  centuries  to  that  smiling  green  country  of 
low  hills  and  pleasant  talking  streams.  Progress 
and  civilisation  and  industry  crept  in  from  every 
side,  and  the  black  shadow  of  commerce  fell 
upon  it ;  smoke  began  to  darken  the  earth,  the 
grass  and  trees  to  disappear  in  the  spreading  in- 
vasion of  stone  and  brick,  the  river  to  turn  from 
silver  to  lead  colour,  from  lead  to  chocolate, 
from  chocolate  to  ink  ;  until  now  at  length  the 

[    13  ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

cathedral  stands  there  solitary  in  the  throng", 
everything  of  its  own  date  long  vanished  but  its 
old  comrade  Cheetham's  College,  where  the 
monks  who  once  served  it  used  to  live  ;  stands 
there  as  on  an  island,  grey  and  sad  and  isolated 
in  the  mists  and  the  rain,  its  bell  daily  calling 
with  the  voice  of  the  departed  centuries  to  men 
whose  ears  are  filled  with  other  sounds,  while 
the  great  tides  of  commercial  life  go  roaring 
round  it  for  ever. 

Within,  in  the  twilight,  the  sounds  of  the  city 
are  something  stifled,  although  even  there  the 
whine  and  clash  of  the  electric  tramcar,  the  hoot 
of  the  motor-horn  and  the  whistle  of  the  railway 
break  in  on  the  voice  of  prayer.  Yet  there  is  a 
strange  and  sudden  peace  here,  all  the  grander 
and  more  impressive  for  the  strife  and  sordid 
clatter  without,  all  the  more  precious  because  it 
was  established  by  the  spirit  that  is  for  ever 
banished  from  among  us.  The  nave  with  its 
double  aisles,  the  intricate  forest  of  pillars  through 
which  the  sight  reaches  the  Derby  and  Ely 
chapels  ;  the  lovely  rood-screen  surmounted  by  the 
mysterious,  jewel-coloured,  soaring  organ-case  ; 
the  perspective  of  the  choir  aisles  and  triforium  ; 
the  grim  rough  arch  of  the  western  tower  that  is 
a  reminder  of  the  dark  periods  of  the  nineteenth- 

[    14  ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

century  taste,  the  obliteration  of  which  caused 
this  picturesque  damage — these  at  first  produce 
an  effect  of  confusion  on  the  mind  that  is  in  odd 
contrast  to  the  dignified  simplicity  of  so  many 
English  cathedrals.  The  building  is  indeed 
unique  in  that  and  other  ways  ;  unique  in  the 
kind  of  its  beauty,  which  depends  not  so  much 
on  size  and  proportion  as  on  loveliness  of  detail 
and  the  naturalness  of  its  orderly  confusion,  like 
a  thing  that  has  grown  by  time  and  with  men's 
needs,  and  yet  in  general  accord  with  one  noble 
and  original  plan. 

It  is  not  of  architecture  that  I  am  to  write, 
but  of  music  ;  not  of  the  fine  old  building,  a 
Minster  in  miniature,  or  of  the  carved  and  painted 
glories  of  its  choir  and  ancient  misty  chantries, 
but  with  the  life  of  music  and  ancient  custom 
that  I  shared  there  for  some  years.  Music  is  the 
soul  of  a  Gothic  cathedral,  and  the  organ  is  its 
voice.  There  and  there  only  can  you  hear  in 
perfection  those  grave  and  suave  tones,  those 
vast  harmonic  structures  of  sound-waves  that 
build  and  build  themselves  up  from  the  pro- 
foundest  deeps  that  the  ear  can  recognise,  and 
spread  in  harmonic  overtones,  and  break  against 
the  senses  in  endless  and  effortless  succession  ; 
there  and  there  only  can  music  be  moulded  into 

[  15  ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

a  thing  that  shakes  and  awes  us  as  only  mass 
and  proportion  can — as  in  architecture,  in  moun- 
tains, in  the  sea  ;  there  and  there  only  can  the 
vast  sound-waves  generated  by  true  organ-tone 
find  at  once  space  enough  in  which  to  spread, 
and  a  shell  great  enough  to  be  filled  with  their 
murmuring  voices. 

II 

I  remember  as  though  it  were  yesterday  my 
first  introduction  to  that  organ-loft  and  to  the 
unique  personality  associated  with  it — an  occa- 
sion that  was  to  influence  so  much  my  musical 
life  and  my  associations  with  the  cathedral. 
I  was,  I  suppose,  about  sixteen  years  old,  a 
devotee  of  music,  a  player  on  keyed  instruments 
of  some  twelve  years'  standing  (or  sitting),  filled 
beforehand  with  veneration  for  the  talents  of  the 
great  man  whom,  by  the  introduction  of  a  friendly 
ecclesiastical  official,  I  was  about  to  meet.  It 
was  a  Sunday  afternoon  ;  and  as  I  sat  in  the  loft 
on  the  rood-screen  looking  at  the  four  rows  of 
yellow  keys  and  the  ranks  of  mellow  ivory  draw- 
stops  with  their  beautiful  sound-suggesting  names 
of  Diapason,  Dulciana,  Suabe  Flute,  Gamba, 
Keraulophon,    Dulcet,   Clarion,  Tuba  Mirabilis, 

-         [    i6  ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

Violone,  Bourdon,  and  so  on,  I  could  hardly 
believe  in  my  own  good  fortune.  The  octave 
clash  of  the  bells  died  away  and  gave  place  to 
those  single  beats  of  a  high  bell  that  produce 
always  such  an  effect  of  expectancy  ;  until  these 
too  died  away,  and  there  were  only  the  sounds  of 
footfalls  and  rustlings  and  creaking  chairs.  Far 
away  in  the  vestries  a  clock  chimed,  and  the 
murmur  of  an  intoning  voice  fell  on  the  ear.  Was 
he  going  to  be  late?  No,  there  was  a  sound  of 
footsteps  at  the  bottom  of  the  stone  stairs,  a 
stumbling  and  fumbling,  the  sound  of  a  voice 
talking  to  itself,  panting  and  heavy  breathing, 
and  a  query  that  made  my  heart  beat.  ^' Who's 
there?  Is  anybody  there?" — and  at  last  the 
emergence  through  the  narrow  door  of  a  short 
figure  with  a  massive  head  and  broad  clean- 
shaven face,  peering  at  me  with  short-sighted 
eyes,  and  then,  when  I  said  who  I  was,  smiling 
reassuringly  and  giving  me  a  left  hand  to  touch 
while  he  climbed,  still  panting,  on  to  the  organ 
bench.  The  whole  business  became  familiar  to 
me  afterwards,  but  I  shall  never  forget  that  first  im- 
pression— the  hazardous  punctuality  that  brought 
him  to  the  organ  bench  just  as  the  distant  Amen 
floated  through  the  aisles  of  the  cathedral,  the 
condition  of  out-of-breathness,  the  sense  of  dignity 

B  [    17   ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

and  solemnity  and  general  air  of  ancient  days 
suddenly  brought  into  the  organ  loft.  And  then 
that  wonderful  moment  when,  two  or  three  soft 
stops  having  been  drawn  on  the  choir  organ, 
the  fingers  were  dropped  firmly  and  softly  on  to 
the  keys  and  there  began,  through  the  simplest 
movements  and  the  most  diatonic  harmonies,  to 
steal  through  the  building  such  waves  of  sound, 
such  harmonies  and  sequences,  as  probably  no 
future  generation  will  ever  hear  again  in  a 
quality  at  once  so  austere  and  so  beautiful.  I 
was  spell-bound  from  the  first.  The  strange  great 
man  had  not  said  ^'  How  d'you  do  ?  "  or  any  of  the 
things  one  had  expected  him  to  say,  but  had  just 
sat  down  and  shut  his  eyes  and  continued  for  a  few 
moments  to  make  this  marvellous  music,  swaying 
about  a  little,  sometimes  shaking  his  head  slowly 
as  though  he  were  singing  to  himself,  and  all  the 
while  marshalling  his  creeping  fingers  over  the 
yellow  keys  as  crisply  as  trained  soldiers  execut- 
ing a  manoeuvre.  It  was  all  too  short  :  forty  or 
fifty  bars  of  mellow  sound,  part  crowded  against 
part  in  perfect  sequence  and  suspension,  melody 
threading  its  way  against  melody  through  mazes 
of  harmonies  of  the  most  exquisite  dissolving 
hues,  and  then  the  long  dominant  pedal  with  the 
sequences  climbing  higher  and  higher  and  droop- 

[    i8   ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

ing  again  to  the  quiet  close,  with  the  deep  murmur 
of  a  thirty-two-foot  pipe  drawn  on  the  last  note. 
No  wonder  I  was  impressed  and  rapt  out  of  my- 
self, for  I  was  listening  consciously  for  the  first 
time  to  one  of  the  most  remarkable  gifts  in  the 
world,  the  gift  inherited  from  a  family  contain- 
ing generations  of  musicians,  and  nourished  and 
guided  in  the  hands  of  the  great  Samuel  Sebastian 
Wesley  ;  and  I  had  the  discernment  to  know  it. 

After  that,  with  the  last  note,  he  opened  his 
eyes  as  if  released  from  a  spell  and  began  to  talk 
to  me,  asking  a  string  of  questions  and  accepting 
my  transparent  homage  with  smiling  and  indul- 
gent complacency,  taking  snuff  the  while  from  a 
little  papier-mache  box  that  had  its  place  under  the 
double  diapason  and  was  not  allowed  to  be  moved  ; 
offering  me  some,  I  remember  ;  and  as  I  was 
too  nervous  to  refuse,  and  it  was  my  first  intro- 
duction to  that  agreeable  narcotic,  I  spent  the 
remainder  of  the  time  until  the  beginning  of  the 
Psalms  alternately  weeping  and  sneezing.  But 
we  got  on  famously  from  that  point,  and  although 
I  was  more  or  less  dazed  and  intoxicated  by  what 
I  saw  and  heard,  to  say  nothing  of  the  snuff,  all  the 
events  and  the  music  and  that  first  cathedral 
evensong  remain  with  me  among  the  highest 
peaks  of  memory  that  will  catch  the  light  until 

[  19  ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

the  last.  And  by  the  end  of  the  service  we  had 
begun  a  friendship  that  brought  me  some  of  the 
best  and  happiest  interests  of  my  life,  and  was 
not  shaken  in  the  difficult  relations  of  master  and 
pupil,  and  remains  to-day,  I  hope,  unshakable. 


Ill 

Glamour  is  a  quality  that  seldom  survives 
familiarity,  but  it  never  departed  from  that  organ 
loft  during  my  master's  reign  there.  When  I 
had  decided  to  forgo  the  more  beaten  and  more 
orthodox  paths  of  adolescent  education  and  to 
apply  myself  seriously  to  the  study  of  music,  it 
became  for  three  years  the  centre  of  my  life. 
That  time  remains  in  my  memory  as  a  misty  con- 
fusion of  services,  classes  of  'counterpoint,  har- 
mony, composition,  lessons  on  the  organ  and 
pianoforte,  rehearsals,  concerts,  the  writing  of 
exercises,  and  the  private  enterprise  of  laborious 
compositions  on  a  grander  scale  ;  practising, 
travelling  to  and  fro,  transient  college-of-music 
acquaintances  and  friendships,  but  always  with 
this  life  on  the  rood-screen  as  the  centre  and  key 
of  it  all.  There  were  generally  two  or  three  of 
us    pupils    and    assistants    present   at    the    daily 

[   20  ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

services  ;  sometimes  there  was  quite  a  levee, 
sometimes  only  one  pupil;  and  in  my  time  when 
there  was  only  one  pupil  it  was  generally  I. 

The  world  of  a  cathedral  organ  loft,  which  is 
as  strictly  traditional  as  any  of  the  other  worlds 
that  make  up  cathedral  life,  is  entirely  indepen- 
dent of  all  these  other  lives  ;  it  hardly  touches 
them  except  in  the  person  of  the  organist  himself, 
who,  if  he  be  in  time,  may  gossip  for  a  few 
minutes  in  the  robing-room  with  his  reverend 
brethren.  There  is  the  clerical  life  of  the  church, 
there  is  the  choir  life,  the  administrative  life  of 
the  chapter-house,  the  musical  world  of  the  organ 
loft ;  and,  I  suppose  one  must  add,  the  life  of  the 
congregation,  though  I  am  afraid  that  is  a  some- 
what unimportant  department  of  ordinary  cathe- 
dral life.  The  handful  of  habitues  who  made  the 
congregation  in  the  choir  morning  and  evening 
were  augmented  by  a  few  scattered  people  sitting 
dreaming  in  the  nave,  the  casual  loiterers  or 
visitors  who  wandered  in  and  out  during  the 
services,  and  a  strange  little  knot  of  amateur 
musicians  who  used  to  sit  under  the  western  tower 
and  take  deep  cognisance  of  all  musical  doings 
in  the  Cathedral.  The  serious  doino-s  of  the 
daily  services  all  took  place  in  the  choir,  and  these 
nave-dwellers  were  mere  critics  and  spectators  of 

[     21     ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

what  of  the  performance  drifted  there  to  them 
under  and  over  the  rood-screen  ;  they  came  merely 
for  the  music  and  the  general  effect  ;  but  it  was 
characteristic  of  us  that  we  played  always — the 
pupil-assistants,  at  any  rate — for  the  benefit  of  the 
nave  and  not  of  the  choir.  For  our  in  and  out 
voluntaries,  that  is  to  say,  we  chose  stops  which 
sounded  particularly  v/ell  in  the  nave,  and  we  did 
not  mind  very  much  how  they  sounded  to  the 
ears  of  the  poor  devout  worshippers  and  the 
Cathedral  staff.  It  was  indeed  all  the  nave  got, 
except,  of  course,  on  Sundays  and  on  major  feasts, 
Vv^hen  the  service  was  held  in  the  nave  itself,  and 
the  choir,  but  for  a  solitary  canon  or  archdeacon, 
was  deserted. 

Every  day,  at  eleven  and  half-past  three,  the 
Cathedral  bell  set  going  this  piece  of  mediaeval 
life  which  went  through  its  rhythmic  process  for 
less  than  an  hour,  and  then  was  dispersed  again. 
At  the  chiming  of  that  voice  high  up  in  the  foggy 
air  the  elements  of  this  life  would  come  converg- 
ing upon  the  Cathedral :  the  choir-men  from  their 
lesson-giving  or  from  their  morning  draught  in 
the  Cathedral  hotel,  the  boys  from  the  choir- 
school,  the  dean  from  his  deanery,  the  canon-in- 
residence  from  his  busy  parochial  life,  the  minor 
canons  and  clerks-in-orders  from  their  homes  or 

[     22     ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

their  rooms,  the  organist  and  his  little  court  of 
pupils  from  rehearsal  or  college  or  study,  all 
came  in  and  took  their  appointed  places  indepen- 
dently of  each  other,  assembled  when  the  clock 
struck,  performed  the  prayers  and  music  appointed 
for  the  day,  rehearsed  the  music  appointed  for  the 
morrow,  and  departed  again.  The  organism  was 
perfect,  the  independence  absolute.  In  the  organ 
loft  the  same  music  was  set  out  as  in  the  choir- 
stalls  ;  nothing  was  ever  announced  ;  at  the  ap- 
pointed moment  the  fingers  dropped  on  the  keys 
and  the  voices  rose  from  the  choir  below  in  per- 
fect and  punctual  accord.  And  all  the  while  one 
was  pleasantly  conscious  that  the  ocean  of  modern 
life  with  its  buying  and  selling,  struggling  and 
scheming  and  fighting,  was  roaring  outside  up 
to  the  very  buttresses  of  the  firm  old  walls  ;  and 
that  the  same  firm  old  walls  performed  their  office 
admirably,  s-tood  between  us  and  all  that  modern 
practical  life,  and  held  it  out  of  the  Cathedral, 
keeping  the  ancient  spot  dry  and  separate  for 
the  performance  of  music  and  prayers. 


[  23  ] 


MEMORIES  OF 


IV 

The  discipline  of  the  organ-loft  was  very  severe, 
though  it  was  entirely  unwritten  and  unstated. 
There  were  no  rules,  but  anyone  who  had  the 
freedom  of  that  place  conformed  to  an  etiquette 
as  rigid  as  that  of  a  German  court.  There  were 
certain  chairs  upon  which  certain  pupils  might 
sit,  but  on  which  it  would  have  been  presumptuous 
for  others  to  sit.  There  were  certain  places  upon 
which  a  hat  or  a  coat  might  be  laid,  but  if  a  coat 
had  been  hung  on  the  highly  convenient  points 
of  the  wrought-iron  grille  one  would  have  been 
aware  that  something  unseemly  had  happened. 
There  was  a  place  where  the  music — the  books 
containing  the  anthems  and  the  services — were 
laid  in  their  order,  and  from  which  they  were 
handed  up  to  the  music-desk  at  exactly  the  right 
moment.  There  was  a  way  in  which  the  chant- 
book  was  folded  down  inside  the  psalter  at  the 
end  of  the  Psalms,  departure  from  which,  one 
felt,  would  have  threatened  the  existence  of  the 
foundation.  There  were  times  for  conversation, 
and  times  for  silence ;  there  were  topics  that 
might,  and  others  that  might  not  be  discussed. 
The  presiding  genius  in  the  organ  loft  had  his 

[   24  ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

own  way  of  joining  in  the  services,  which  was 
difficult  and  disconcerting  for  a  stranger  to  com- 
prehend. Some  devout  visitor  from  a  distant 
cathedral  would,  for  example,  bow  himself 
down  in  prayer  at  the  conventional  moment, 
to  be  roused  by  a  voice  saying  pleasantly,  *^  I 
hear  you  have  beautiful  bacon  in  your  town," 
and  be  compelled  to  join  in  an  animated  conver- 
sation on  the  subject  of  bacon,  again  to  be  in- 
terrupted by  his  interlocutor  suddenly  singing 
^^Amen  "  in  a  clear  tenor  voice.  And  then,  think- 
ing perhaps  that  the  organ  loft  was  regarded  as 
having  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  devotional 
proceedings  below,  the  visitor  would  himself  ven- 
ture upon  a  mild  jest,  to  find  that  his  distinguished 
friend  had  got  off  the  organ-bench,  turned  his  back 
to  him,  and  was  engaged  in  reciting  the  creed. 

The  tenor  voice  would  go  on  in  most  pathetic 
and  devotional  tones,  until,  sitting  down  and 
reaching  for  his  snuff-box,  the  Believer  would  say, 
**The  resurrection  of  the  body  and  the  life  ever- 
lasting. Amen.  Yes,  I  must  say  that  I  always 
thought  at  least  you  had  good  bacon  in  your 
town." 

I  do  not  think  that  we  were  at  all  like  disciples 
or  students  in  a  book.  We  had  the  greatest  rever- 
ence for  our  master,  and  some  of  us  were  afraid 

[  25  ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

of  him  ;  but  though  he  was  a  master  in  the  true 
artistic  sense  of  the  word,  we  certainly  never 
referred  to  him  as  maestro  or  maitre.  We  generally 
called  him  ^^  He."  The  vergers  and  choir-men 
called  him  **The  Doctor";  members  of  the  foun- 
dation, who  were  older  than  he  and  rather  touchy 
on  the  score  of  years,  generally  called  him  ^^Old 

P ."  The  adjective  was  used  in  an  affectionate 

rather  than  in  a  temporal  sense.  To  us  he  was 
generally  simply  ^^He."  ^Ms  He  coming  this 
afternoon  ?  "  ^^  I  saw  Him  walking  down  Victoria 
Street."  ^^ You  had  better  push  in  that  trumpet;  I 
believe  He  is  somewhere  in  the  building,"  and  so 
on.  We  each  had  our  individual  relationship  with 
him,  but  loyalty  and  affection,  I  think,  were 
common  to  all,  or  nearly  all.  There  were  back- 
ward pupils  who  were  rather  stupid  and  whom 
he  used  to  bully  unmercifully,  sending  them  out 
for  pennyworths  of  snuff  in  the  middle  of  the 
service,  and  overwhelming  them  with  comic  irony 
if  they  ventured  upon  an  original  remark.  Nothing 
they  could  do  was  right ;  if  by  any  chance  he 
was  late  and  they  had  begun  to  ^*play  in,"  his 
voice  would  be  heard  ascending  the  stairs,  saying, 
^^Stop!  for  God's  sake,  stop!"  although  they 
knew  well  that  they  dared  not  stop.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  fearing  his  wrath,   such  a  one   had 

[   26  ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

waited  and  not  begun  to  play,  the  same  agitated 
voice  would  be  heard  at  the  bottom  of  the  spiral 
staircase  saying,  ''  Go  on,  sir,  go  on  ;  why  don't 
you   begin  ?  Can't  you  begin   instead   of  sitting 

there  like  a ?  Here,  get  out  of  the  way  ;  get 

out  of  the  way  !  Let  me  come  !  "  If  a  favourite 
pupil  or  two  were  there,  then  the  dullard  would 
be  sent  either  for  a  pennyworth  of  snuff,  or  else, 
^*  Do,  like  a  good  fellow,  listen  at  the  bottom  of 
the  nave  and  tell  me  how  the  anthem  sounds." 
On  his  return  he  would  be  questioned. 

^'Well,  Mr.  Smith,  how  did  the  anthem 
sound  ?  " 

**Oh,  it  sounded  all  right.  Doctor." 

^^AU  right!  What  do  you  mean  by  all  right, 
sir?  Do  you  mean  to  say  you  didn't  notice  any- 
thing wrong  with  it?  " 

^^Well,  perhaps  it  might  have  been  a  little 
better." 

^^Oh,  really,  Mr.  Smith!  Then  it  wasn't  all 
right.  It  might  have  been  a  little  better  !  How 
might  it  have  been  better,  sir  ?  " 

^*  I  don't  know." 

^^Dont  know!  You  must  mean  something  when 
you  say  it  might  have  been  better.  Tell  us  in  what 
way  you  think  it  might  have  been  better." 

^*Well,  I  thought  the  tenors  were  a  bit  off." 

[   27   ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

^* Really?  Really !  Mr.  Smith  is  of  the  opinion 
that  the  tenors  were  ^  a  bit  off '  :  that  is  a  most 
important  and  valuable  opinion.  Upon  my  word, 
Mr.  Smith,  your  critical  faculties  are  most  pene- 
trative ;  you  ought  to  take  an  appointment  on 
the  Press.  The  tenors  are  ^a  bit  off'  1  God  bless 
my  soul !  I  wonder  where  you  learn  such  horrible 
expressions."  And  for  the  remainder  of  the  service, 
in  the  pauses  between  the  prayers,  he  would  at 
intervals  ejaculate  ^^a  bit  off!"  in  a  shocked 
undertone,  with  solemn  shakings  of  the  head,  to 
the  delight  of  the  favoured  audience  and  the 
nervous  smiles  of  Mr.  Smith. 

We  were  all  very  like  children  in  the  charge  of 
a  more  grown-up  child.  But  it  was  a  very  happy 
and  innocent  world,  deepened  and  made  serious 
by  the  simple  and  high  artistic  standards  according 
to  which  we  worked  and  judged  each  other.  The 
discipline  was  good  for  us  all,  and  there  is  no  de- 
partment of  music  in  which  such  discipline  is  so 
necessary  as  in  the  playing  of  the  organ.  Again, 
there  were  no  formulated  rules  about  our  playing 
or  our  art.  What  we  were  actually  taught  by  word 
of  mouth  was  very  little  ;  what  we  learnt  by  study 
and  example  was  immense.  We  had  simply  the 
constant  association  with  perfection  in  this  par- 
ticular branch  of  art,  and  we  imbibed  the  tradi- 

[  28  ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

tions  of  the  great  cathedral  school  of  orgran-play- 
ing",  that  our  master  had  himself  acquired  direct, 
not  only  from  his  father  at  Bath  Abbey,  but 
from  Samuel  Sebastian  Wesley  at  Gloucester 
and  Winchester.  However  secular  we  might  be 
in  our  thoughts  or  our  conversation,  our  playing 
in  the  Cathedral  was  required  to  be  in  the  spirit 
of  the  building  and  of  the  office  which  we  accom- 
panied, and  the  slightest  secularity  in  that  would 
have  involved  banishment  from  the  organ  loft. 
Austerity  was  the  note  of  our  tradition  ;  extraneous 
effects  were  absolutely  forbidden;  adornment  was 
not  to  be  the  outward  adornment  of  fancy  stops 
and  tremulants,  and  the  putting  on  of  the  apparel 
of  tone  colour,  but  the  ^^meek  and  quiet  spirit" 
of  pure  part-playing,  the  rhythm  and  melody 
coming  from  the  hidden  man  of  the  heart,  which, 
in  the  eyes  of  our  master  at  any  rate,  were  of 
great  price. 

Such  discipline  as  this  is  always  necessary,  as  I 
have  said,  in  the  study  of  the  organ,  but  especially 
so  in  cathedral  playing.  There  is  an  intoxica- 
tion in  producing  sound  on  the  organ  in  a  fine 
cathedral  such  as  is  experienced  by  a  player  of 
no  other  instrument  ;  and  a  cathedral  organ  is 
a  weapon  which  is  not  lightly  to  be  entrusted 
to    the    hands    of   the    inexperienced,    who    are 

[   29  ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

apt  to  be  carried  away  by  the  sense  of  the 
tremendous  power  which  they  control.  The 
unaccustomed  organist,  suddenly  placed  in  this 
position,  loses  his  head  altogether  ;  he  is  carried 
away  by  the  astounding  acoustic  results  of  putting 
his  fingers  on  the  keys.  He  casts  restraint  to  the 
winds,  tries  this  stop  and  that,  and  does  not  rest 
until  he  has  the  full  organ  blaring  away  to  the 
roof;  perhaps  forgetting  that  a  slovenly  pro- 
gression, which  does  not  so  much  matter  when 
played  on  a  few  quiet  stops  in  a  closed  swell- 
box,  becomes  excruciating  when  heard  in  the 
clangorous  tones  of  high-pressure  reeds.  Only 
familiarity  and  discipline  can  cure  this  fault  of 
the  organist,  and  often  it  is  never  cured  at  all,  as 
you  may  hear  for  yourself  if  you  go  and  listen  in 
more  than  one  English  cathedral. 


V 

What  actually  did  we  learn,  sitting  up  there 
amid  the  dust,  and  the  rare  sunbeams,  and  the 
many  echoes  ?  It  depended  very  much  on  our- 
selves. Looking  back  at  it,  I  do  not  remember 
any  of  us  being  actually  and  deliberately  taught 
anything  ;    and    I    repeat,    I    think    it    is    hardly 

[   30  ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

possible  to  teach  any  art  except  by  example.  We 
were  led  to  the  water  and  given  free  access  to  it ; 
no  attempt  was  made  to  force  us  to  drink,  and 
each  of  us  imbibed  and,  according  to  his  capacity, 
took  away  something  different.  Some  of  us  became 
great  executant  players,  and  departed  to  different 
parts  of  the  globe  to  astonish  the  natives  with 
organ  recitals  ;  others  imbibed  a  love  of  architec- 
ture— in  fact,  I  think  we  all  learnt  a  litde  about 
that ;  others  became  learned  pundits,  and  wore 
hoods,  and  wrote  themselves  *^  Doctor, "  and 
went  forth  to  bear  that  drab  banner  onward  in 
their  own  spheres  of  work  ;  and  others  acquired, 
what  was  perhaps  the  most  precious  secret  of  that 
place,  a  pure  style  in  organ-playing,  the  style  of 
our  master  and  of  his  master  before  him,  a  style 
which  is  unfortunately  carried  on  only  by  direct 
tradition.  The  pupils  of  my  master  and  of  some 
of  his  rare  contemporaries  have  it,  provided  they 
have  not  wantonly  overlaid  it  with  garish  decor- 
ations of  their  own  ;  but  I  doubt  whether  it  out- 
lives that  generation  ;  I  doubt  whether  any  of 
their  pupils  have  it.  What  it  is  I  shall  presently 
try  to  define  ;  but  it  is  almost  hopeless  to  render 
a  thine  like  this  in  words  when  it  was  onlv  learned 
by  days  and  months  and  years  of  association  with 
its  exponent. 

[  31   ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

We  learned  other  things  besides  organ-playing. 
If  we  did  not  learn  piety  in  the  modern  sense  of 
the  word,  we  learned  it  in  the  ancient  sense  ;  we 
learned  reverence,  and  the  willingness  to  recog- 
nise and  worship  greatness  when  we  found  it — 
a  thing  by  no  means  sufficiently  taught  to 
students  of  any  art  in  this  country ;  who  too 
often,  instead  of  trying  to  raise  themselves  to 
the  level  of  greatness  when  they  see  it,  try  to 
pull  down  greatness  to  their  own  level,  and  ex- 
plain it  away  by  their  own  small  experience.  And 
we  learned  about  literature,  and  cooking,  and 
old  furniture,   and  ritual. 

For  my  own  part  I  acquired  in  those  days  a 
curious  sense  of  the  detachment  of  the  cathedral 
and  its  music  from  the  rest  of  the  world.  I  lived 
with  both  ;  and  sitting  there  so  long,  morning  and 
afternoon,  my  ear  got  tuned  to  a  certain  austerity, 
and  I  learned  to  love  the  old  church  music  of  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries — the  music  of 
Tye,  Tallis,  Farrant,  Bull,  Lawes,  Byrd,  Gibbons, 
Child,  Humphrey,  Purcell,  and  Blow.  The 
eighteenth  century,  with  perhaps  the  exception  of 
Boyce  and  Kelway,  never  so  much  appealed  to 
me  ;  and  it  was  not  much  to  be  wondered  at  that 
modern  church  music  began  and  ended  for  me 
with  the  Wesley  family.  But  even  while   I  loved 

[  32  ] 


A   CATHETyRAL 

all  these  composers,  and  delighted  to  hear  their 
music  floating  up  to  me  out  of  the  carved  choir 
stalls,  I  knew  well  all  the  time  that  it  was  music 
the  love  of  which  I  could  not  communicate  to 
anyone  else  who  had  not,  like  me,  passed  some 
time  in  this  ancient  atmosphere,  in  the  theatre 
for  which  it  was  designed.  It  is  not  sufficiently  re- 
membered by  critics  of  the  work  of  English  church 
composers  that  their  work  was  nearly  all  written 
for  performance  in  cathedrals.  As  I  have  said, 
the  setting  in  motion  of  great  sound  waves  in 
a  cathedral  is  an  art  in  itself.  You  are  not  deal- 
ing with  notes  and  chords  so  much  as  waves  and 
masses  of  tone  ;  and  many  a  composition  which 
would  sound  sublime  in  a  cathedral  would  sound 
feeble  enough  if  tried  over  on  the  pianoforte  or 
performed  in  a  room — -and  vice  versa.  Music  of 
this  school  does  not  always  stand  the  test  of 
severe  analysis  on  the  music  desk  ;  it  is  music 
written  for  a  certain  instrument,  and  that  instru- 
ment the  cathedral  ;  for  the  cathedral  performs 
the  music  as  well  as  the  organ  and  voices,  joins 
with  them,  a  very  orchestra  of  stone  and  space 
and  proportion,  the  secret  of  which  we  have  lost. 


t')  -> 
oo 


MEMORIES  OF 


VI 

Modern  music  did  not  in  any  form  invade  our 
organ  loft ;  we  had,  I  think  quite  properly,  to 
seek  that  elsewhere,  with  the  result  that  our  lives 
were  agreeably  shot  with  all  kinds  of  varied 
colours  in  music.  From  writing  our  own  double 
counterpoint  at  the  College  of  Music  we  would 
attend  an  orchestral  rehearsal  under  Richter  of, 
say,  Strauss's  latest  symphonic  poem  ;  and  from 
there  would  hurry  to  the  cathedral  to  play 
Kelway  in  B  minor,  and  after  that  one  would 
perhaps  accompany  the  great  man  across  the 
high  seas  of  the  city,  through  the  busy  secular 
traffic  of  full  afternoon  tide  to  the  town  hall, 
there  to  sit  surrounded  by  the  glowing  frescoes 
of  Ford  Madox  Brown,  and  smoke  a  meditative 
pipe  while  he  practised  on  the  lovely  Cavaille- 
Coll  organ  there  some  great  classic  of  Bach,  or 
one  of  the  mighty,  well-nigh  unplayable  master- 
pieces of  Liszt.  For  the  eccentric,  snuff-taking, 
eighteenth-century's  master  of  the  organ  loft,  and 
sober  inventor  of  diatonic  sequences  there,  became 
quite  another  person  in  the  concert-room.  With 
the  penny  snuff-box,  left  reposing  under  the 
double   diapason,    was   left  behind    the  austerity 

[   34  ] 


A   CATHEDRAL 

and  conservatism  of  the  cathedral  i>layer  ;  and 
instead  of  him  there  appeared  an  extremely 
modern  solo  performer,  with  parcels  of  the  very 
latest  music  on  his  table,  who  practised  by  the 
hour  on  a  dumb  clavier  to  keep  his  fing-ers  up  to 
the  standards  of  modern  technique,  and  who 
could  import  clarity  and  simplicity  into  composi- 
tions which  in  the  hands  of  other  players  became 
too  often  a  distressing-  scream  and  jumble  of 
sound.  I  think  that,  with  the  possible  exception 
of  Widor's  symphonies,  which  are  inferior  to  it  in 
musical  value,  the  extreme  limit  of  possibility  in 
organ  playing-  has  been  reached  in  the  Organ 
Fantasia  of  Liszt — notablv  that  one  on  the  chorale 
*'  Ad  nos  ad  salutarem, "  which  not  many  organists 
dare,  and  which  hardly  any  of  them  accomplish. 
He  is  one  of  the  few  whom  I  have  ever  heard 
attempt  it,  and  the  only  one  whom  I  have  heard 
achieve  it  with  ease  and  mastery.  And  while 
we  talked,  and  dusk  and  darkness  gathered  in  the 
hall,  and  only  the  little  bunch  of  lights  glowed 
on  us  above  the  console,  we  would  talk  of  music 
or  of  people — always  on  these  two  topics,  people 
and  music,  music  and  people — and  chiefly  of 
people  who  made  music  and  of  music  that  sup- 
posed people.  In  earlier  days  than  this  Ford 
Madox    Brown   when    at   work    on    his    frescoes 

[   35    ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

used  to  be  his  companion  where  I  now  sat ;  and 
sometimes  in  the  dusk  he  used  to  have  weird 
ideas  and  look  into  the  surrounding*  shadows  and 
tell  me  how  often  when  he  was  playing  alone  he 
had  the  sense  that  Madox  Brown  had  come 
back  and  was  somewhere  near  him.  ...  It  was 
an  odd,  weird  atmosphere  ;  and  if  I  were  to  re- 
visit that  place  after  an  absence  of  twenty  years 
it  would  be  solely  and  definitely  associated  with 
the  personalities  of  those  two  artists. 

Sometimes  the  days  were  very  severe,  and,  to 
youth  hardly  yet  finished  growing,  inadequately 
supported  by  material  nourishment.  On  a  Satur- 
day, for  example,  there  would  probably  be  one's 
own  private  practice  in  the  morning,  the  cathe- 
dral service  at  eleven,  choir  rehearsal  at  twelve, 
which  might  last  an  hour,  a  dive  into  some 
German  restaurant  for  a  meal,  a  walk  to  some 
curiosity  shop  or  other  where  an  old  print  or 
piece  of  furniture  was  to  be  examined,  the  return 
to  the  cathedral  at  half-past  three,  and  adjourn- 
ment from  there  to  the  town  hall  ;  the  re- 
mainder of  the  afternoon  till  about  six  o'clock 
being  spent  in  practice  on  his  part  and  listening 
and  smoking  on  mine  ;  from  six  to  seven  con- 
versation and  smoking  in  his  room  ;  from  seven 
to  a  quarter  past  eight  organ  recital  in  the  town 

[  36'] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

hall  ;  and  at  last,  famished  and  exhausted,  home 
to  his  house  for  supper.  But  as  I  said,  the  interval 
between  lunch  and  this  late  supi)er  was  often, 
from  my  point  of  view,  inadequately  spanned. 
With  some  one  upon  whom  you  are  at  once  on 
the  terms  of  reverence,  a  kind  of  laughing  awe, 
and  affectionate  intimacy,  relations  are  bound  to 
be  complex,  because  you  may  be  summoned  to 
adopt  any  one  of  these  attitudes  at  any  moment. 
He  used  to  think  that  I  was  given  to  general 
extravagance  and  over-fastidiousness  in  the 
matter  of  what  I  ate  and  drank  and  smoked  ;  and 
he  used  to  take  a  delight  on  our  way  from  the 
cathedral  to  the  town  hall  in  suddenly  turning 
into  some  particularly  low  and  vile  tea-shop,  and 
either  administering  there  and  then  the  nauseous 
corrective  of  a  halfpenny  cup  of  tea  and  a  half- 
penny bun  (which  I  was  obliged  to  take,  knowing 
I  should  get  nothing  else  till  ten  o'clock),  or, 
worse  still,  purchase  a  particularly  hateful  penny- 
worth of  bread  and  butter,  which  was  carried 
away  in  a  paper  bag  and  consumed,  but  divided 
by  him  with  strict  impartiality  between  us,  to- 
gether with  some  nasty  cocoa  w^hich  we  used  to 
concoct  with  condensed  milk  over  the  fire  in  his 
room.  No  person  has  ever  taken  a  greater  toll  of 
my  affection  than  was  taken  on  these  occasions  ; 

[   37   ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

but  I  was  positively  afraid  to  criticise  or  object, 
from  a  kind  of  glorious  artistic  shame  which  bade 
me  realise  that  what  was  good  enough  for  him 
was  surely  good  enough  for  me.  He  used  to  try 
me  further  (because  he  himself  had  a  catholic 
although  discriminating  taste  in  tobacco)  by  buy- 
ing me  rank  penny  cigars  and  insisting  on  my 
giving  my  opinion  of  them;  and  afterwards,  after 
supper  in  the  evening  perhaps,  by  giving  me  a 
really  fine  Cabana  and  telling  me  that  it  had  cost 
a  halfpenny.  .  .  .  But  there  was  nothing  that  he 
could  do  to  any  of  us,  no  task  or  trouble  that  he 
could  impose  upon  us,  for  which  we  had  not  for- 
given him  by  the  time  his  fingers  had  been  ten 
seconds  on  the  keys. 

VII 

Nothing  could  have  been  more  austere  than 
the  method  of  our  technical  training*.  We  were 
started  on  Best's  Pedal  Exercises,  went  through 
the  increasing  intricacies  of  Mcrkel's  Pedal 
Studies,  and  from  that  we  launched  out  on 
Bach's  Eight  Short  Preludes  and  Fugues  and  his 
Six  Trios.  After  that  probably  Rhcinberger's 
Sonatas,  or  possibly  a  sonata  of  Guilmant  inter- 
posed   before    the    more    difficult    Rhcinbergers, 

[  38  ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

then  more  and  more  elaborate  Bach,  and  beyond 
that  anything"  you  pleased.  What  we  were  drilled 
in  was  absolute  precision  ;  hesitation,  slovenli- 
ness, or  lack  of  rhythm  were  the  unforgival^le 
sins,  and  his  most  scathing"  criticism  w^as,  *'You 
are  playing  like  an  old  lady."  We  were  drilled 
also  in  playing  the  chorales  of  Bach  from  open 
score  written  out  by  ourselves  in  the  soprano, 
alto,  tenor,  and  bass  clefs — an  admirable  simul- 
taneous training  in  sight-reading  and  pure  part- 
playing.  The  more  brilliant  pupils  (alas  !  1  was 
never  one  of  them)  could  perform  almost  in- 
credible feats  in  this  direction,  reading  at  sight 
and  playing  the  transcription  into  open  score  of 
some  of  the  fugues  from  Das  ii.'oliltcinpeyirtcs 
Klavier,  But  anything  in  the  nature  of  show 
pieces,  things  written  for  display,  was  strictly 
excluded  from  the  curriculum.  It  was  understood 
that  if  we  wished  to  do  such  things  we  must 
do  them  by  ourselves,  with  a  touch  of  smiling 
derision  at  the  mere  mention  of  them.  And  the 
greatest  things  of  Bach,  such  as  the  G  Minor 
Fantasia  and  Fugue,  the  A  Minor,  E  Minor, 
B  Minor,  D  Minor,  were  held  sacred  from  the 
degradation  of  being  used  for  educational  pur- 
poses ;  quite  properly,  I  think.  Little  things 
that    most    teachers    of    the    organ    ignore    were 

[   39   ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

curiously  insisted  upon  by  him,  such  as  absolute 
precision  and  firmness  in  putting"  down  the  notes 
of  a  chord,  A  sloppy,  nerveless  method,  where 
one  note  sounded  sooner  than  another,  gave  him 
positive  physical  distress,  and  I  have  seen  a  pupil 
kept  for  half  an  hour  doing"  nothing  but  put- 
ting down  a  chord  and  taking  it  off  again.  The 
true  value  of  dotted  notes — much  ignored  in 
organ-playing;  phrasing — almost  totally  ignored 
by  other  masters  ;  and  the  getting  of  accent  by 
playing  the  accented  note  a  fraction  of  a  beat 
late,  holding  it  down  to  its  extreme  value,  and 
preceding  it  by  a  staccato  note — these  were  all 
features  of  his  style  of  playing  and  teaching. 
I  think  more  than  anything  else  he  drilled  us 
in  the  importance  of  strict  time,  knowing  quite 
wtII  that  later  discretion  would  supply  us  with 
the  necessary  freedom  from  a  mechanical  style, 
but  that  unless  we  had  the  sense  of  time  and 
rhythm  firmly  implanted  in  us  at  the  beginning 
our  future  individualities  of  style  would  be  built 
on  a  shifting  and  insecure  foundation.  How 
necessary  this  was  any  one  can  test  for  himself  by 
attending  nine  out  of  ten  organ  recitals  that  are 
given  in  England.  In  playing  Bach,  or  contra- 
puntal music,  the  tendency  of  all  players  not  so 
drilled  is  to  get  faster  and  faster,  which  they  do, 

[  40   ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

having  to  bring  themselves  back  to  a  tempo  at 
which  they  can  play  the  notes  at  all  by  sudden 
and  obvious  reining-in  at  difficult  moments.  It 
is  dreadfully  nervous  work  to  listen,  say,  to  the 
G  Minor  Organ  Fugue  of  Bach  played  in  this 
way.  A  certain  pace  is  set ;  but  if  you  keep  the 
rhythm  of  that  pace  in  your  head  you  will  find 
that  by  the  time  the  fourth  voice  has  entered  the 
tempo  has  increased  almost  by  one  half.  The 
result  is  that,  instead  of  every  note  sounding  clear 
and  separate,  the  composition  from  the  middle 
to  the  end  is  blurred  and  stumbled  over  in  a 
dreadful  way,  as  though  by  adding  more  stops 
and  making  more  noise  it  had  ceased  to  matter 
whether  all  the  notes  were  played  or  given  their 
natural  value.  This  is  sometimes  called  a  broad 
style  of  playing  ;  the  large  manner,  tone-paint- 
ing, and  so  on.  Believe  me,  these  are  only  other 
names  for  slovenliness,  inaccuracy,  and  digital 
incapacity.  The  exciting  tendency  of  all  contra- 
puntal music  makes  it  necessary  for  the  player  to 
apply  to  himself  a  kind  of  mental  brake  ;  the 
piece  acquires  momentum  ;  it  is  like  a  thing  run- 
ning down  a  hill  ;  true  breadth  and  dignity  are 
only  attained  by  getting  the  mass  in  check  and 
holding  it,  while  still  rolling  forward,  in  true 
restraint  and  control. 

[  41  ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

Organists  sometimes  wonder  why  their  instru- 
ment is  unpopular  among  the  majority  of  refined 
and  cultivated  musicians  ;  or  perhaps  they  would 
even  be  surprised  to  learn  that  it  is  ;  but  I  can 
assure  them  of  the  fact ;  and  not  only  that,  but 
I  say  the  detestation  in  which  it  is  held  by  many 
sensitive  musicians  is  in  far  too  many  cases 
amply  justified.  If  public  performers  on  the  piano- 
forte committed  such  faults  as  I  have  described 
they  would  be  laughed  out  of  existence.  By 
these  inartistic  habits,  however,  organists  have 
brought  upon  themselves  the  disrepute  in  which, 
as  musicians,  they  are  held.  And  unfortunately 
they  are  all  lumped  together  ;  the  really  skilful 
player,  the  artist  and  student,  has  to  suffer  for 
the  misdemeanours  of  the  fumbling  amateur 
who,  Sunday  by  Sunday,  makes  hideous  the 
service  in  the  parish  church.  It  is  unfortunate 
that  the  only  experience  many  people  have  of 
the  organ  is  these  dismal  travesties  of  musical 
performance  ;  yet  it  is  not  only  the  humble 
village  organist  who  is  to  blame,  but  often  his 
eminent  and  skilful  superior.  The  organ  is  the 
most  dominating  and  magnificent  of  all  musical 
instruments,  but  it  does  not  always  attract  the 
most  dominating  and  magnificent  musical  talent, 
partly  because  its  emotional  range  is  (or  ought  to 

[  42   ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

be)  limited,  and  also  because,  like  all  magnificent 
thing's,  it  becomes  a  terrible  weapon  in  the  hands 
of  the  incompetent.  It  demands  a  greater  exercise 
of  those  two  artistic  qualities,  taste  and  restraint, 
than  any  other  instrument  ;  and  I  think  that  I  am 
right  in  saying  that  in  proportion  to  its  demands 
it  probably  receives  less  of  these  than  any  other 
instrument.  That  is  why  the  quiet  routine  of  work 
done  for  thirty-four  years  in  the  organ  loft  of  my 
cathedral  should  receive  the  gratitude  and  praise 
of  every  artist  and  musician,  since  it  was  singly 
directed  to  the  inculcation  and  preservation  of 
purity  of  style. 

VIII 

It  may  interest  the  reader  of  these  pages,  who 
perhaps  associates  the  use  of  the  org'an  in  church 
with  feelings  of  vague  distress  for  which  he 
cannot  quite  account,  to  hear  how  the  services 
were  played  in  the  cathedral  of  my  memory.  I 
have  said  how  my  master's  own  style  is  founded 
on  the  great  West  of  England  school  of  organ- 
playing,  but  he  did  not  strictly  follow  it  ;  it  stood 
somewhere  between  those  old  leisurely  days,  when 
it  was  customary  before  the  Psalms  for  the 
congregation   to    sit   down    and    the    organist    to 

[   43   J 


MEMORIES  OF 

improvise  a  long  and  magnificent  prelude,  and 
these  later  days,  when  there  is  a  tendency  to 
gallop  things  through.  His  style  was  somewhat 
different  on  Sundays  and  feast  days,  when  there 
was  a  large  congregation,  from  the  strict  manner 
in  which  the  daily  choir  services  were  accom- 
panied. The  daily  routine  was  invariable  in  form, 
and  to  me  always  the  most  delightful  thing  in 
it  was  the  thirty  or  forty  bars  of  prelude,  which 
almost  invariably  took  one  of  two  or  three  forms  : 
either  it  was  a  piece  of  pure  part-playing  on  the 
soft  voices  of  the  Choir  organ,  beginning  in  two 
or  three  parts  and  extending  to  six  or  seven  or 
eight,  always  founded  on  a  theme  or  germ  of  the 
first  few  notes,  a  web  full  of  inner  melodies, 
imitations,  and  suspensions,  with  most  wonderful 
harmonic  changes  arising  out  of  them  ;  or  else, 
beginning  in  the  same  way,  the  left  hand  would 
take  up  the  theme  on  a  quiet  reed  in  the  tenor 
octave  of  the  Swell  organ,  presently  imitating  it 
in  delightful  duet  and  canon,  with  the  thumb  and 
first  finger  dropped  on  to  the  Great  organ  with  a 
quiet  flue  stop  drawn  in  contrast.  The  harmony 
would  always  be  kept  above  the  parts  with  the 
right  hand  on  the  Choir  organ,  calm  and  quiet  ; 
and  often  this  method  was  productive  of  delight- 
ful results.  Or  sometimes  the  solo  part  would  be 

L  44  ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

confined  to  a  single  tenor  reed  on  the  Swell,  and 
would  answ^er  and  interrogate  the  harmonic  move- 
ment of  the  parts  on  the  Choir  organ,  with  perhaps 
a  little  cadenza,  dropping  to  the  dominant  pedal 
before  the  end.  But  it  was  always  a  perfect  move- 
ment in  miniature.  In  all  the  hundreds  of  times  I 
have  sat  in  the  organ  loft  I  have  hardly  ever 
heard  him  ^'play  in  "  at  the  daily  services  except 
in  one  of  these  three  \vays,  and  I  can  honestly 
say  I  have  never  heard  him  repeat  himself.  The 
playing  of  solos  in  the  treble  on  a  high  stop  with 
an  accompaniment  in  the  middle  register,  so 
beloved  for  the  formless  twiddlings  of  vicious 
organists,  is  a  thing  1  have  never  heard  him  do. 
And  in  all  this  experience  of  hearing  him  ''play 
in"  I  have  never  heard  him  use  fancy  stops,  such 
as  the  Voix  Celeste,  but  always  the  quietest, 
calmest  tones,  a  real  prelude  in  the  devotional 
mood. 

The  organ  was,  of  course,  not  heard  again 
until  the  Psalms  ;  and  in  the  accompaniment  to 
them  again  a  very  strict  form,  with  infinite  free- 
dom in  the  treatment  of  it,  was  used.  The  first 
verse  was  played  full  on  the  Great  organ  dia- 
pasons which  were  practically  never  used  again 
until  the  Gloria.  The  rest  of  the  verses  were 
either  on  the  Choir  organ,  often  without  pedals  ; 

[   45   ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

or  with  the  body  of  the  accompaniment  on  the 
Swell  organ,  with  perhaps  some  slow-moving 
counterpoint  held  against  the  melody  of  the  chant 
by  a  single  voice  on  the  Choir  or  Solo  organs  ; 
or  sometimes  with  the  melody  itself  played  an 
octave  below  on  the  Great  organ  on  the  Gamba 
and  Double  Diapasons.  In  a  long  psalm  infinite 
variety  of  accompaniment  was  permitted,  but  it 
was  all  kept  very  quiet,  and  where  the  upper  part 
on  the  organ  was  prominent  it  was  never  either 
the  melody  of  the  chant  or  a  counter  melody 
moving  in  the  same  time  with  it,  but  long  holding- 
notes,  moving  preferably  by  fourths  and  fifths 
and  octaves  ;  hardly  ever  by  thirds  and  sixths, 
except  as  mere  passing  notes.  The  Swell  reeds, 
which  can  so  easily  get  monotonous  and  tiresome, 
were  used  with  the  greatest  reserve,  and  were 
taken  off  again  almost  before  one  realised  they 
were  there  ;  just  sometimes  and  suddenly,  and 
underneath  the  running  course  of  the  chant,  one 
would  feel  rather  than  hear  the  muttering  and 
quaking  of  the  sixteen  and  thirty-two  foot  pedal 
pipes  and  the  subdued  reverberation  and  glow, 
as  of  a  line  of  fire  running  along  a  cloud  bank, 
of  the  Swell  organ  reeds.  And  immediately  after 
it,  almost  overlapping  it,  would  be  heard  the 
clear    passionless    tones    of    the    Choir    organ. 

[  46  ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

Always  in  the  last  half  verse  before  the  Gloria 
the  Great-to-Pedal  coupler  was  drawn — a  very 
old  custom,  the  origin  of  which  I  have  not  been 
able  to  discover,  unless  it  was  originally  designed 
to  warn  the  clerks  in  the  choir  that  the  Gloria 
had  been  reached.  My  cathedral  being  an  old 
collegiate  church,  it  was  the  custom  to  turn  to 
the  east  at  the  Gloria  ;  and  my  associations  with 
that  fine  burst  of  praise  are  always,  so  far  as 
sound  goes.  Hill's  beautiful  diapasons,  and,  visu- 
ally, the  sight  through  the  canopies  of  the  rood 
screen  of  the  perspective  of  the  choir,  the  violet 
cassocks  and  scarlet  hoods  decorating  the  sombre 
darkness  of  the  oak  stalls,  and  the  Gothic  decor- 
ations of  swine,  gamecocks,  bear-baiting,  and 
men  playing  backgammon. 

The  services,  if  of  the  old  English  school,  were 
played  very  strictly,  the  Choir  organ  without 
pedals  being  used  to  accompany  all  the  "verses  "  ; 
or  if  of  the  modern  school  a  freer  and  more 
orchestral  treatment  was  used.  The  anthem,  if 
it  had  no  written  prelude,  was  one  of  our  points 
of  anticipation  in  the  service  ;  usually  it  would 
receive  only  a  few  bars  of  introduction,  but  some- 
times, and  especially  in  the  twilight  of  an  after- 
noon in  the  fall  of  the  year,  the  player  would  per- 
haps imagine  himself  back  in  Bath  or  Gloucester 

[   47    I 


MEMORIES  OF 

or  Winchester,  and  prelude  the  anthem  in  the 
old  grand  manner,  greatly  to  our  edification  and 
the  delight  of  the  ^^gang"  clustered  under  the 
western  archway.  ^^  Playing  out"  was  the  next 
and  last  point  of  interest.  Here,  again,  he  never 
played  a  note  of  written  music,  although  he  by 
no  means  approved  of  his  own  practice  being 
generally  adopted  in  cathedrals.  But  he  used  to 
say  that  at  his  weekly  organ  recitals  people  had 
all  the  opportunities  they  needed  for  listening  to 
the  performance  of  pieces,  and  that  it  was  un- 
necessary to  give  anything  in  the  nature  of  a 
performance  at  the  cathedral  ;  otherwise,  where 
there  is  not  a  regular  municipal  organ  recital, 
people  in  cathedral  towns  generally  expect  to 
hear  some  classical  music  at  the  close  of  the 
afternoon  services.  But  for  all  that,  his  improvised 
movements  were  often  elaborate  enough,  and  en- 
tirely different  in  style  from  the  preludes  to  the 
anthems  in  the  services  ;  very  free  in  form,  but 
again  always  unified  by  the  presence  of  a  really 
happy  and  definite  theme,  and  often  exhibiting 
astounding  virtuoso  feats  of  .contrapuntal  and 
executive  dexterity.  If  he  were  in  a  happy  mood 
he  would  go  on  for  a  long  time,  sometimes  for 
ten  or  fifteen  minutes ;  and  how  the  minor  canons 
used  to  hate  it  if  perchance  they  had  a  christen- 

[  48   ] 


A   CATHEDRAL 

ing  at  the  end  of  the  service,  and  had  to  wait  on 
a  cold  winter  afternoon  shivering  in  the  baptistery 
until  the  magnificent  music  had  come  to  an 
end  !  .  .  .  And  then  we  would  troop  out  after  him 
across  the  ancient  stones  of  the  churchyard  into 
the  gathering  gloom,  and  out  among  the  lights 
and  noises  of  the  city;  and  so  would  end  another 
day  of  music. 

IX 

We  are  all  living  still,  I  believe  ;  this  is  not 
a  memoir  of  dead  people,  but  of  a  dead  life.  We 
are  all  living — all  my  contemporaries  of  the  organ 
loft,  that  is  to  say — but  we  are  all  scattered  :  the 
piece  of  life  that  held  us  together  is  as  dead  and 
vanished  as  any  other  nucleus  of  the  many  that 
have  kept  spinning  the  thread  of  music  in  that 
place  for  hundreds  of  years.  A  dean  other  than 
the  good  friend  who  lies  beneath  the  tessellated 
pavement  of  the  presbytery  keeps  his  state  in  the 
carved  stall  beneath  the  screen  ;  minor  canons 
and  clerks-in-orders  other  than  those  whose  voices 
were  so  familiar  to  us  continue  to  sing  and  recite 
the  same  words  ;  another  organist  sits  in  the 
seat  of  the  mighty  ;  other  pupils  surround  him, 
and   in   their  day,   like   us,   will   wear  down   their 

D  [  49   ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

fraction  of  the  stone  spiral  steps  that  lead  to  the 
organ  loft.  I  should  be  less  than  human  if  I  did 
not  sigh  over  these  changes.  The  successor^  of 
my  master  is  a  musician  and  a  scholar  of  dis- 
tinction, who  will  doubtless  bring  new  life  and 
new  interest  and  a  fresh  point  of  view  to  his 
work.  But  it  will  not  be  the  same  life  or  the  same 
interest  or  the  same  tradition.  Why  should  it  be  ? 
My  master  in  his  day  came  as  a  youth,  an  inno- 
vator, a  reformer  ;  and  I  hope  that  his  successor, 
when  he  shall  have  served  so  long,  will  in  his 
turn  be  regretted  and  deplored  as  one  who  upheld 
the  custom  of  old  and  good  things,  and  whose 
departure  will  cause  head-shakings  and  doubtful 
apprehension  as  to  what  is  to  come  next.  It  is  the 
whole  essence  of  life  in  this  world  :  things  that 
are  new  become  stale  and  old  and  customary,  and 
the  innovation  of  to-day  is  the  tradition  of  to- 
morrow. It  is  the  old  tale  of  the  generations 
which  we  used  to  hear  on  the  eighteenth  morning 
of  every  month  :  T/iou  tu^mest  man  to  destruction  : 
again  thon  saycst^  Come  again^  ye  children  of 
men. 

You    who    wander    in    and    out   of  cathedrals, 
whose   interest  in   them  is    chiefly  architectural, 

^  Mr.  Sydney  J.  Nicholson,  M.A,,  Mus.Bac. 

[  50  ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

and  whose  knowledge  and  experience  of  their 
service  is  fragmentary,  who  say,  ^^The  organ  was 
playing,"  or  ''The  choir  was  singing  something 
that  sounded  beautiful,"  have  little  knowledge  of 
the  way  in  which  that  music  binds  together  the 
daily  life  of  the  place  into  a  composite  and  cor- 
porate whole.  The  daily  singing  of  the  Psalter  is  in 
itself  one  of  the  most  pleasant  and  enlightening 
experiences  that  can  fall  to  any  man  at  the  forma- 
tive age  ;  in  itself  it  is  an  education  in  literature  and 
poetry.  The  collegiate  life  of  a  cathedral,  moreover, 
is  the  nearest  thing  to  the  monastic  life  outside 
the  walls  of  a  conventual  establishment;  but  it  is 
associated  with  none  of  the  cowardly  evasions  of 
life  that  are  implicit  in  the  convent.  Our  life  in 
the  cathedral  was  a  thing  entirely  of  our  own  ; 
we  never  talked  of  it  in  the  outside  world,  because 
no  one  would  have  understood  ;  I  used  to  wish 
often  that  I  could  communicate  or  explain  to 
people  I  cared  for  something  of  the  charm  of  that 
life  ;  but  it  was  of  no  use  ;  they  merely  thought 
it  odd  that  one  should  go  to  church  so  much.  In 
a  strictly  Protestant  community  a  purely  ritual 
observance  of  religion  is  not  in  the  least  under- 
stood ;  and  those  who  only  associate  religion  with 
emotional  experiences  of  the  soul  and  deeply 
personal  contemplations  of  spiritual  life  have  no 

[  51  ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

idea  of  a  reverence  not  associated  with  extreme 
spiritual  self-consciousness  and  inward  concen- 
tration. We  never  thought  about  such  things.  But 
everything  done  daily  and  regularly  at  the  same 
time  and  in  the  same  way  becomes  a  rite  and  a 
ceremony,  and  if  it  be  in  itself  a  fine  thing,  and 
done  well  in  a  beautiful  place,  it  becomes  a  highly 
religious  thing  in  the  true  sense  of  that  word. 

But  this  very  isolation  made  us  live,  as  we  say, 
a  double  life.  All  the  rest  of  our  time  we  were 
secularists,  out  in  the  ordinary  world,  going  to 
dinners  and  to  theatres,  and  never  mentioning  the 
cathedral  ;  but  once  inside  its  gates  we  took  up 
the  monastic  life,  forgot  the  world  completely, 
and  existed  for  nothing  but  the  office  at  which  we 
assisted.  And  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  some 
such  rhythmic  observance  as  this  would  have  a 
most  unifying  and  steadying  effect  on  the  lives  of 
most  men  and  women.  To  do  regularly  every  day 
something  that  is  entirely  outside  your  world  ; 
to  do  it  in  company  or  ^*in  college,"  and  to 
see  that  it  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
the  rest  of  your  daily  life,  is  soothing  without 
being  deadening,  and  unifying  without  being 
monotonous.  It  becomes  in  time  a  medium  in 
which  the  changing  and  disturbing  experiences 
of  life  can  be  quietly  examined  and  seen   in  re- 

[  52  ] 


A  CATHE'DRAL 

lativc  proportion  to  each  other  ;  and  a  verse  of 
the  Psalms,  recurring  rhythmically  through  the 
months  and  the  years,  will  come  to  have  a  strange 
linking  effect  when  you  consider  in  what  various 
moods  you  have  recited  it.  It  comes  round  again 
and  again,  like  the  sun  and  the  moon  and  the 
stars  ;  something  regular  and  stable  and  im- 
personal against  which  to  measure  the  change 
and  flowing  away  of  things  that  make  one's  own 
life.  And  they  are  fortunate  who,  like  us,  have 
taken  their  term  of  service  in  that  ceremonial 
world,  who  know  the  Psalter  so  well  that  any  few 
words  together  will  suggest  the  whole  of  a  long 
context  ;  and  not  only  suggest  the  context  but 
give  it  in  memory  a  beautiful  setting,  perhaps  of 
a  dark  winter  morning,  with  the  candlelight 
gleaming  on  polished  oak,  and  the  glowing  pipes 
of  the  organ  case,  and  the  ranks  of  violet  and 
snow  and  scarlet  colour  beneath  the  canopies  ; 
or  of  an  April  afternoon,  with  the  sunlight 
striking  through  the  clerestory  windows  in  dusty 
slants  and  beams,  and  the  solemn  cadence  of  the 
chant,  and  the  shudder  of  harmony  through  the 
building — and  Spring  waiting  for  you  all  riotous 
outside.  There  were  endless  fragments  of  words 
which  had  for  me  such  definite  associations  of 
time  and  place.     ycs2/  diilcis  monoria^  although 

[   53   ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

it  belongs  to  the  season  of  Epiphany,  is  a  late 
summer  afternoon,  warm  and  sleepy  ;  and  Holy 
Nighty  Peace/id  Nighty  is  reminiscent  of  the 
Advent  mists  and  chills,  and  lights  in  the  empty 
cathedral,  and  vespers  on  a  Christmas  Eve,  and 
cold  fingers  on  the  ivory  keys.  There  was  some- 
thing lovely  and  primitive  and  indescribable  in 
the  atmosphere  here,  and  out  there  in  the  world 
a  suggestion  of  holly  and  feasting,  and  the  ex- 
pectation that  takes  a  long  while  to  die  in  the 
hearts  of  those  whose  childhood  has  been  happy. 
And  that  wonderful  picture  of  the  king's  daughter, 
with  her  raiment  of  needlework  and  clothing  of 
wrought  gold,  signifies  to  me  the  spirit  of  true 
festival,  the  frosty  exhilaration  of  the  traditional 
Christmas  morning,  and  many  other  things  en- 
tirely amiable  and  pleasant,  such  as  exist  only  in 
a  world  where  all  thy  garments  smell  of  myrrh^ 
aloes ^  and  cassia  :  out  of  the  ivory  palaces^  where- 
by they  have  made  thee  glad. 


X 

Although  the  beginning  of  these  associations 
is  so  clearly  and  definitely  in  my  mind,  they  re- 
main   otherwise  undated  and  undistinguished,  a 

[   54  ] 


A  CATHEDRAL 

glow  in  the  perspective  of  memory,  like  the  lights 
of  a  town  seen  from  far  away  at  sea.  I  came  to 
the  end  of  my  pupilage  ;  I  do  not  remember  any- 
thing about  that,  but  there  came  the  day  when  I 
played  for  the  last  time,  when  I  for  the  last  time 
took  any  part  in  the  music  of  the  organ  loft.  I 
know  that  I  often  played  after  I  ceased  to  be  a 
pupil,  and  I  think  that  perhaps  the  last  time  I 
took  any  formal  part  was  after  I  came  home  from 
South  Africa,  where  I  had  been  as  a  war-corre- 
spondent, and  I  went  to  the  cathedral  one  Sunday 
afternoon  to  see  my  master.  I  felt  that  so  much 
had  happened  to  me  since  I  had  sat  there  as  a 
pupil  that  I  was  a  person  considerably  increased 
in  importance  ;  but  if  I  had  any  such  idea,  it 
vanished  during  the  course  of  the  service.  There 
was  a  hymn  on  Sunday  afternoons  after  the 
sermon,  and  I  generally  played  it  when  I  was 
there,  as  my  master  preferred  to  continue  the 
pleasant  doze  into  which  the  combined  effects  of 
his  lunch  and  the  sermon  never  failed  to  cast  him. 
He  went  on,  as  usual,  as  if  he  were  speaking  to 
a  child  of  six  years  old  :  *'Do  you  know  this 
hymn?  Can  you  play  it?  Well,  then,  go  on  and 
play  it  quietly,  but  for  goodness'  sake  be  careful 
and  don't  do  anything  ridiculous."  He  always 
spoke    to    us    as    if    we    had   just    mastered    the 

[    55    ] 


MEMORIES  OF 

elements  of  music  and  as  if  the  playing  of  a  simple 
hymn  tune  was  a  doubtful  and  even  rash  experi- 
ment which  it  was  his  unhappy  duty  to  permit  us 
to  attempt  ;  and  if  he  heard  another  stop  being 
pulled  out,  or  any  quite  ordinary  addition  being 
made  to  the  four-part  harmony,  he  would  moan 
and  squirm  in  his  chair  as  if  he  were  being  torn 
on  the  rack.  He  went  on  in  just  the  same  way  on 
this  afternoon,  and  without  the  slightest  justifi- 
cation ;  for  whatever  his  pupils  can  or  cannot  do, 
they  know  how  to  accompany  choral  harmony 
on  the  organ.  And  at  the  end  of  it  I  remember 
feeling  thoroughly  reduced,  and  that  although  I 
might  go  to  wars  and  write  books,  I  should  never, 
never,  never,  in  any  circumstances,  be  able  to 
play  the  organ. 

That  is  the  last  time  I  remember  playing  in 
the  cathedral.  There  is  a  magnificent  new  organ 
there  now,  and  I  shall  never  play  the  old  one 
again  ;  so  perhaps  I  had  better  write  no  more  of 
these  memories.  I  have  been  deliberately  prolong- 
ing them,  you  see,  because  while  I  have  been 
writing  them  I  have  been  living  again  those 
years.  They  are  not  so  long  ago,  but  I  feel  that 
if  I  do  not  write  it  down  now,  something  of  what 
I  fain  would  remember  may  be  brushed  away  by 
the  constant  passage  of  time  and  change.  I  have 

[   56   J 


A   CATHE'DRAL 

always  promised  myself  to  write  this  chapter, 
both  as  an  act  of  homage  to  the  living  and  pious 
commemoration  of  what  is  past  and  gone  ;  and 
if  I  am  reluctant  to  bring  it  to  an  end  it  is  be- 
cause I  feel  that  with  the  last  word  of  this  page 
that  piece  of  life  will  definitely  end  for  me.  I 
have  had  it  in  my  mind  for  years  ;  and  a  thing 
that  one  intends  to  write  is  always  very  much 
alive  and  fluent ;  but  one  possesses  it  only  while 
it  remains  unwritten.  That  is  one  reason  why  some 
of  the  most  beautiful  stories  are  never  written, 
because  once  they  are  written  they  are  dead  and 
done  with  to  the  writer.  One  must  choose  be- 
tween keeping  a  thing  for  oneself  and  giving  it 
away  to  other  people — one  cannot  do  both.  So 
remember,  when  you  read  this,  that  although  it 
may  be  a  small  thing  for  you  to  receive,  it  is 
a  great  thing  for  me  to  give. 


[    57   ] 


THE  PLACE  OF  MUSIC 
IN   MODERN   LIFE 


THE  VLACE  OF  MUSIC 
IN  MODERN  LIFE 


THERE  are  periods  in  the  world's  age  when 
the  great  things  that  run  through  our 
human  history  hke  continuous  threads 
have  to  be  reconsidered  ;  when  our  thought  about 
them  has  to  be  readjusted  to  the  new  ideas  and  new 
conditions  at  which  we  have  arrived  in  our  journey. 
No  one  who  contemplates  calmly  the  civilised 
world  to-day  can  pretend  that  ours  is  a  moment  of 
deep  spiritual  or  artistic  growth.  The  present  time 
is  essentially  one  in  which  the  things  of  the  spirit 
— that  is  to  say  the  arts  and  the  philosophies — after 
a  time  of  great  and  rapid  development,  have  to 
come  to  a  pause,  and  when  material  tilings  are 
developing  so  rapidly  as  to  absorb  almost  the 
whole  of  the  world's  time.  This  is  a  time  of 
spiritual  and  artistic  maturity  ;  after  a  period  of 
growth  and  struggle  there  has  come  a  |)ause, 
in  which  these  spiritual  affairs  of  ours  detach 
themselves   from   the  great  onward -rushing   tide 

[   6i    ] 


THE  PLACE  OF  MUSIC 

of  movement  which  we  call  progress,  and  are 
floating  as  it  were  in  still  water,  away  from  the 
main  current,  away  from  the  great  pathway  of  the 
world's  progress  ;  out  of  sympathy  with  it  per- 
haps, but  most  certainly  detached  from  it.  In 
every  day,  after  the  glory  of  the  dawn  and  fresh- 
ness of  the  early  morning,  after  the  fire  has  faded 
from  the  skies  and  the  dews  have  dried  from  the 
fields  of  promise,  there  comes  a  time  of  stagnation 
and  flatness,  when  the  air  seems  to  hang  heavily, 
and  the  life  and  vitality  to  have  departed  from 
the  day.  In  every  human  life  there  is  a  similar 
moment  when,  after  emergence  from  the  dreamy 
realms  of  childhood,  after  the  promises  and  the 
enthusiasms  and  fires  of  youth  have  been  a  little 
dulled  and  chilled  by  contact  with  the  crude 
realities  of  life,  a  flatness  and  weariness  and 
sense  of  disillusionment  come  like  a  cloud  over 
our  existence,  and  the  material  asserts  itself  over 
the  spiritual.  And  so  with  that  longer  day  and 
greater  and  more  complex  life  in  which  we  image 
the  history  of  an  age  or  a  civilisation  ;  so  with 
the  component  currents  of  human  efl'ort  of  which 
that  life  is  made  up  ;  so,  at  some  time  or  other, 
with  discovery,  with  invention,  with  religion, 
with  art ;  these  things  all  have  their  time  of 
accomplishment,  and  their  time  of  pause.    And 

[   62   ] 


IN  MODERN  LIFE 

SO,  among  other  arts,  with  the  art  of  music — a 
thing  founded  on  phenomena  which  are  as  old  as 
the  human  race,  but  which  in  the  form  that  we 
know  it  now  is  the  youngest  of  the  family  of  arts, 
one  whose  development  through  the  last  few 
centuries  has  been  increasingly  rapid,  whose  birth 
lies  within  the  span  of  recorded  human  history, 
and  whose  maturity  we  witness  to-day. 

Think,  then,  of  music  to-day  as  a  mature,  fully 
evolved  art,  of  the  technique  of  which  we  would 
appear  to  know  practically  everything  there  is  to 
be  known  ;  and  think  of  modern  life  as  the  exist- 
ence of  men  and  women  in  this  world  to-day,  and 
the  special  circumstances  that  make  that  existence 
different  from  the  lives  of  men  and  women  of  an 
earlier  age.  In  what  way  is  the  life  we  live  more 
suitable  for  the  cultivation  of  music,  in  what  way 
is  it  less  suitable  than  in  the  life  of  the  last  two 
centuries,  in  which  music  came  to  its  rapid  and 
splendid  maturity?  These,  I  think,  are  questions 
worth  considering. 

Unfortunately,  the  moment  one  begins  to  talk 
about  modern  life  one  is  almost  bound  to  begin 
to  talk  in  platitudes  ;  there  are  some  things  so 
obvious  and  yet  so  true  that  they  can  only  be  ex- 
pressed in  a  commonplace.  We  do  live  in  an  age 
of  hurry.  We  do  live  in  a  world  where  rapidity  is 

[  63  ] 


THE  PLACE  OF  MUSIC 

often  counted  higher  than  thoroughness,  and 
where  the  conditions  of  life  demand  a  smattering 
of  information  on  many  subjects,  rather  than  a 
depth  of  knowledge  on  any  one.  We  do  live  in  a 
civilisation  where  such  things  as  telegraphy, 
railroads,  telephones,  mechanical  substitutes  for 
labour,  have  enormously  complicated  the  life  of 
every  human  being  in  our  country,  and  where  in 
the  hurry  and  glamour  and  chaotic  activities  of 
the  struggle  we  seem  to  drift  farther  and  farther 
away  from  that  quieter,  younger  age  that  was  the 
golden  age  of  the  fine  arts,  where  there  was  sun- 
shine and  silence,  and  room  for  the  soul  of  man 
to  grow,  and  space  for  it  to  soar  on  its  wings  of 
poetry  and  music. 

It  may  seem  absurd  to  suggest  that  music  is  an 
anachronism  here,  and  that  where  other  things 
are  developing  and  changing  and  growing  so 
rapidly  it  alone  is  to  be  condemned  to  a  state  of 
stagnation.  Surely  music,  you  may  say,  which  is 
such  a  living  art,  and  so  closely  bound  up  with 
the  senses  and  emotions  of  mankind,  can  express 
the  particular  spirit  of  every  age  ;  surely  it  too 
can  move  with  the  times,  and  readjust  itself  to  a 
new  age  and  new  conditions.  I  know  that  this 
view  is  held  by  many  ;  but  I  should  be  dishonest 
if  I   pretended   that   it   was   my   view.    I   do   not 

[  64  ] 


IN  MODERN  LIFE 

believe  that  music  can  '^  move  with  the  times  "  in 
the  common  sense  of  that  expression  ;  I  do  not 
believe  that  music  can  be  used  as  a  happy  or 
suitable  expression  for  the  fluctuations  of  the 
cotton  market,  for  the  spirit  of  wireless  telegraphy 
or  valveless  motor  eng-ines,  or  for  our  emotions 
about  murder  trials  and  rubber  shares.  Music  is 
no  time-server.  It  is,  and  has  always  been,  an 
expression  of  the  inner  soul  of  man,  the  most 
subtle  form  of  expression  known  to  us,  but  an 
expression  always  of  those  great  fundamental 
emotions  that  are  common,  not  to  one  country  or 
to  one  time,  but  to  the  soul  of  man  in  all  times 
and  places. 

Then,  you  say,  why  should  it  be  any  less  at 
home  in  our  modern  life  than  in  the  life  of  the 
generations  before  us  ?  The  answer  is  to  be  found 
in  those  very  conditions  of  modern  life  that 
give  it  its  distracting,  hurrying,  and  un restful 
character.  Music,  I  have  said,  is  primarily  an 
expression  of  the  soul  ;  an  escape,  if  you  like,  for 
the  imagination  ;  a  means  where  we  may  be  inde- 
pendent of  our  immediate  conditions,  and  escape 
beyond  them  into  a  world  of  poetry  and  fantasy. 
And  the  need  for  that  escape  is  found  in  a  simple 
and  quiet  life  rather  than  in  a  complex  and  hurry- 
ing life — or  to  put  it  in  an  extreme  wa\',  the  need 

E  [    65     ] 


THE  PLACE  OF  MUSIC 

for  this  imaginative  escape  exists  more  in  a  dull 
life  than  in  an  interesting-  life.  If  all  our  activities 
of  thought  and  imagination  are  fully  occupied  by 
the  things  around  us,  we  shall  not  need  to  use 
our  imagination  to  escape  into  a  more  interesting 
world  ;  in  short,  material  things  are  so  many,  so 
varied,  and  so  engrossing,  that  we  do  not  feel 
the  need  of  things  of  the  spirit. 


II 

Let  me  try  to  make  this  rather  obscure  point 
plainer  by  picturing  the  typical  lives  of  two  men. 
The  pne  man  lives,  in  an  age  other  than  this,  in 
a  little  country  town  far  removed  from  any  great 
metropolitan  activities.  He  is  not  rich,  but  his 
means  are,  and  have  always  been,  sufficient  for 
his  wants,  and  he  lives  in  a  dignified  simplicity 
into  which  it  is  hardly  ever  necessary  for  the 
thought  of  money  to  enter.  He  has  some  regular 
occupation  connected  with  the  life  of  the  people 
immediately  about  him,  but  he  has  leisure  for 
reading  and  cultivating  himself,  time  to  be  a 
student  of  any  subject  that  interests  him.  The 
mountains  that  tower  above  the  little  town,  the 
river  that  wanders  through  the  meadows  beyond, 

[    66   ] 


IN  MODERN  LIFE 

the  road  that  comes  down  through  the  valley  and 
goes  on  uito  the  unknown  world — these  all  supply 
him  with  material  for  interest,  speculation,  and 
wonder.  The  mountains,  though  visible,  are  in- 
accessible to  him,  and  their  peaks  remain  un- 
spoiled by  familiarity  ;  the  river  that  has  shone 
and  rippled  through  his  childhood  is  a  living 
though  speechless  companion  of  his  daily  life  ; 
the  road  is  for  him  a  connecting  link  in  the  chain 
that  binds  him  to  other  worlds  and  other  lives, 
coming  from  one  unknown  and  going  on  to  an- 
other. His  human  interests  lie  in  the  people  and  the 
lives  immediately  round  about  him  ;  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  a  newspaper,  and  letters  are  rare, 
things  brought  by  the  hand  of  some  chance 
traveller,  eagerly  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  read, 
re-read,  and  discussed  until  their  minutest  interest 
is  threadbare.  His  excitements  and  distractions 
are  all  on  this  minute  scale,  and  are  savoured  and 
enjoyed  to  their  fullest  extent,  however  small  and 
narrow  they  may  be.  In  such  a  life  imagine  the 
place  of  music — how  enlarging  to  the  horizon, 
how  deepening  to  the  cultivation  of  that  quiet 
soul  living  that  quiet  life  !  How  lovingly  would 
not  such  a  man  study  its  secrets,  how  gladly 
would  he  not  give  that  labour  that  sweetens  all 
acquirement,  how  deeply  would  he  not  pore  over 

[   67    ] 


THE  PLACE   OF  MUSIC 

the  works  of  the  masters  until  he  became  imbued 
with  their  spirit !  Real  growth,  real  artistic  culti- 
vation, real  musical  perception,  would  soon  be 
the  mark  of  such  a  man,  and  to  him  and  his 
friends,  living  such  a  life  in  such  a  place,  music 
would  be  a  great  door  opened  into  the  world  of 
the  spirit,  at  once  employing  and  satisfying  the 


miagmation. 


And  now  take  another  man.  He  lives  in  a 
great  city  crowded  with  commerce,  where  labour 
struggles  against  labour  for  a  bare  living,  and 
riches  are  piled  on  riches  ;  where  the  air  is 
darkened  with  smoke,  and  from  dawn  till  night 
the  streets  are  filled  with  clamour  and  movement 
and  hurry.  This  man  too  has  his  occupation,  but 
it  is  an  occupation  that  is  never  finished  ;  he 
dares  not  pause  or  rest  for  fear  some  one  should 
step  in  and  take  his  place  ;  whatever  means  he 
has  are  not  enough,  for  about  him  on  every  side 
are  people  with  more  money,  with  greater  means, 
through  whose  example  the  standard  of  life  goes 
steadily  up.  He  opens  his  daily  paper  every 
morning,  and  immediately,  as  in  a  mirror,  the 
whole  world  lies  open  before  him  ;  he  sees  the 
explorer  at  work  amid  the  ice-packs  of  the  North  ; 
the  life  of  a  hundred  famous  or  notorious  people 
is  spread  before  him  in  minute  detail  ;   he  reads 

[   68    ] 


IN  MODERN  LIFE 

the  thoughts  of  his  fcllow-mcn  half  a  world  away  ; 
he  hears  the  strife  of  parliaments,  witnesses  the 
rise  and  fall  of  kings,  and  sees  the  mine  of  revo- 
lution fired,  and  rejiuhlics  founded  on  the  ashes 
of  dynasties.  His  imagination,  in  short,  is  more 
than  occupied.  The  swift  trains  can  carry  him 
within  an  hour  or  two  to  the  outer  world  in  a 
dozen  different  directions  ;  from  that  outer  world 
men  and  women  come,  daily  mingling  with  and 
confusing  his  own  existence  ;  time  and  distance 
are  both  annihilated,  and  the  doings  of  the  whole 
world  brought  visibly  and  audibly  before  him. 
Again,  what  room  is  there  in  such  a  life  for  imagi- 
nation ?  What  place  is  there  for  music,  or,  more 
truly,  what  time  is  there  for  music  ? 

F'or  no  one  can  cultivate  music  without  giving 
time  and  trouble  to  it.  As  there  is  no  royal  road 
to  learning  of  any  kind,  so  there  are  no  short 
cuts  to  musical  cultivation.  The  advertisements  of 
gramophone  makers  and  the  sellers  of  mechanical 
piano-players  tell  us  that  the  years  spent  in  musi- 
cal study  are  no  longer  necessary,  that  all  the 
charm,  all  the  wonder,  and  all  the  cultivation  of 
music  are  open  to  any  one,  however  ignorant,  at 
the  cost  of  a  few  shillings  and  a  succession  of 
monthly  payments.  There  never  was  a  greater  lie 
uttered.  The   ignoramus    ma\'   put    the   roll  of  a 

[  69  ]  ' 


THE  PLACE  OF  MUSIC 

Beethoven  sonata  on  his  piano-player,  turn  the 
necessary  cranks  and  adjust  the  necessary  levers, 
and  succeed  in  producing — what?  At  the  best  an 
amazingly  clever  and  life-like  caricature  of  a  musi- 
cal performance — at  the  worst  a  hideous  travesty 
and  debasement  of  the  noblest  artistic  creations 
of  mankind.  Depend  upon  it,  it  is  by  labour  and 
study,  and  by  them  alone,  that  we  attain  to  any 
real  achievement  or  high  artistic  enjoyment  ;  and 
this  mechanical  substitution,  this  effort  to  get 
results  without  any  expenditure  of  time  or  trouble 
on  the  process,  is  to  me  one  of  the  most  pathetic 
and  futile  things  which  our  time  has  brought 
forth.  Let  us  deal  with  these  mechanical  inven- 
tions once  and  for  all,  and  then  dismiss  them 
from  our  thoughts.  Let  us  admit  all  their  mar- 
vellousness  and  their  possibility,  in  the  hands  of 
an  artistic  manipulator,  for  illusion  and  deception. 
The  more  mechanically  perfect  they  seem  to  be, 
the  more  hateful  they  should  be  to  us,  and  the 
more  strenuously  we  should  set  our  faces  against 
any  tolerance  of  them  or  traffic  with  them.  For 
music  from  beginning  to  end,  from  its  inception 
in  the  brain  or  impulse  in  the  heart,  to  its  utter- 
ance by  voice  or  instrument,  is  a  thing  of  human 
feeling,  human  touch,  human  effort.  If  we  use 
purely  mechanical  means  of  locomotion  and  move- 

[  70  ] 


IN  MODERN  LIFE 

ment  wc  soon  lose  the  use  of  our  arms  and  legs  ; 
and  so  in  music  the  cultivation  of  artificial  and 
mechanical  processes  will  merely  mean  the  neglect 
and  atrophy  of  our  natural  powers  ;  in  a  word, 
cultivation  of  mechanical  means  of  musical  per- 
formance must  surely  mean  the  ultimate  loss  of 
power  to  invent  music,  loss  of  power  to  produce 
it,  and  loss  of  power  to  enjoy  it. 


Ill 

Music  is  cultivated  in  three  great  departments. 
There  is  the  music  of  the  church,  the  music  of 
the  concert-room  and  theatre,  and  the  music  of 
the  home.  The  first  of  these  is  allied  to  a  depart- 
ing thing,  and  will  depart  with  it  ;  the  other  two 
belong  to  our  everyday  life,  and  reflect  its 
characteristics.  What  is  it  in  the  music  of  the 
theatre  and  concert-room  that  most  flourishes  to- 
day? I  am  the  first  to  admit  the  enormous  strides 
that  public  taste  has  made  in  orchestral  music  in 
the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years.  Orchestral  music  has 
become  what  it  never  was  before — really  popular 
among  musical  amateurs  ;  and  London,  which 
for  some  time  lagged  behind  the  North  in  its 
appreciation  and  support  of  orchestral  music,  has 

[   7>    ] 


THE  PLACE  OF  MUSIC 

now  probably  more  orchestral  performances, 
attended  by  more  people,  than  any  other  city 
in  the  world.  This  is  largely  due  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  modern  art  of  conducting  and  the 
consequent  improvement  in  orchestral  playing, 
and  the  consequent  unlocking  of  a  whole  treasure- 
house  of  sound  to  the  general  public.  But  it  still 
remains  a  fact  that  orchestral  music  does  not 
*^pay"  in  the  large  sense  of  the  word,  and  if  one 
wants  a  rough  test  for  what  is  popular,  not  with 
amateurs  predisposed  to  be  interested,  but  with  the 
public  at  large,  one  had  better  apply  the  money  test. 
There  are  no  fortunes  to  be  made  in  running 
orchestras  or  giving  orchestral  concerts.  Neither 
will  any  one  seriously  contend  that  grand  opera 
is  popular  in  England.  It  is  of  no  use  to  say  that 
it  ought  to  be,  that  it  would  be  under  such  and 
such  conditions  ;  the  fact  for  our  immediate  con- 
sideration is  that  it  is  not — that  is  to  say,  that 
people  will  not  pay  to  hear  operas  in  sufficient 
numbers  to  make  it  financially  worth  any  one's 
while  to  produce  them.  The  heroic  struggles  of 
the  Carl  Rosa  Company  have  proved  it  in  the 
past.  The  equally  heroic  efforts  of  the  Moody 
Manners  Company  are  proving  it  in  the  present ; 
and  though  Mr.  Thomas  Beecham  has  done 
admirable  work  with  his  opera  season  in  London, 

[  72  ] 


IN  MODERN  LIFE 

and  is  getting  any  amount  of  appreciation  and 
support,  we  must  not  forget  that  there  is  a  well 
from  which  the  general  public  is  believed  to 
draw  health,  and  from  which  Mr.  Beecham  is 
believed  to  draw  wealth.  In  short,  the  fact  that 
Mr.  Beecham  is  very  generously  and  patriotically 
spending  his  father's  money  on  the  production  of 
operas  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  opera  is  not 
closely  enough  in  touch  with  modern  life  in  Eng- 
land to  be  economically  possible. 

What,  then,  is  popular?  We  have  one  thing  that 
really  does  flourish  in  England  as  it  flourishes 
nowhere  else,  and  that  is  so-called  musical 
comedy.  Serious  musicians  are  too  apt  to  despise 
these  productions,  but  they  have  survived  the 
criticism  of  the  learned  and  the  denunciation  of 
musical  enthusiasts,  myself  included,  and  they 
have  proved  that  they  do  belong  in  a  very  real 
way  to  the  life  of  our  time.  I  remember  in  my 
own  early  days  as  a  musical  critic,  when  I  must 
admit  these  musical  comedies  had  not  reached 
the  high  standard  they  have  reached  since,  in- 
volving my  newspapers  in  more  than  one  libel 
action  by  Mr.  George  Edwardes,  on  account  of 
my  denunciation  of  his  productions  on  artistic 
grounds  ;  but  I  should  be  less  than  honest  if  I 
did   not   now  admit  that  time  and  development 

[   73    ] 


THE  PLACE  OF  MUSIC 

have  proved  me  wrong  ;  that  there  was  a  germ 
of  real  life  in  these  things,  and  that  it  has  lived 
and  developed  into  a  mode  of  expression  pecu- 
liarly English.  For  we  must  remember  that  the 
great  characteristic  of  English  music  in  its  best 
days  was  always  its  gaiety  ;  it  was  never  melan- 
choly, never  romantic,  never  savage  or  barbaric  ; 
it  was  always  gay,  gay  with  the  gaiety  of  the 
English  country-side,  of  village  songs  and  games, 
and  romping  dances  in  the  meadows,  and  the 
bucolic  hilarity  of  the  tavern.  Well,  much  of  that 
has  gone  from  us.  The  gaiety  of  the  country-side, 
the  games  and  village  dances  have  vanished  ;  but 
still,  when  the  thread  of  English  music  reasserts 
itself,  it  is  found,  though  wonderfully  transformed, 
to  be  still  uttering  its  gay  message.  What  is  it 
we  have  always  most  needed  in  England,  with 
our  heavy  climate  and  grey  cloudy  skies,  with 
our  sternness  and  thoroughness  and  dignity? 
A  little  laughter,  surely.  It  has  always  been  the 
thing  missing  from  our  composition,  and  the 
thing  with  which  the  divine  art  has  tried  to 
supply  us.  Now  to-day  we  are  all  a  little  jaded, 
a  little  tired,  a  little  worried  ;  though  we  cannot 
repair  to  the  meadow-side,  or  join  in  the  happy 
ridiculous  games  of  former  generations,  we  go  to 
the  theatre  and  laugh  at  the  ridiculous  situations 

[    74   ] 


IN  MODERN  LIFE 

invented  for  us  there,  and  in  the  music  that 
accompanies  them  we  have  found  something  that 
evidently  answers  to  some  need  in  us,  so  that  the 
airs  that  are  born  there  are  whistled  and  sung  in 
the  country-side,  and,  as  much  as  any  music  can, 
become  part  of  our  national  life.  I  say  not  a  word 
in  criticism  of  this  music,  whether  it  is  good  or 
bad  ;  that  is  beside  my  point  here.  It  is  a  part  of 
our  life,  and  it  is  one  of  the  supreme  expressions 
of  music  in  our  modern  life.  But  we  may  admit 
that,  without  overrating  its  importance,  or  with- 
out denying  the  enormous  share  that  the  dresses, 
the  scenery,  and  the  personalities  of  the  people 
taking  part  in  these  performances  have  in 
spreading  the  popularity  of  the  music. 

This  frivolous  expression  of  music  is  at  one 
end  of  the  scale  ;  but  at  the  opposite  end  there  is 
another  way  in  which  it  enters  very  considerably 
into  our  modern  life,  and  that  is  the  economic 
way.  Music  has  been  pressed  into  the  great 
service  of  wage-earning  to  such  an  extent  that 
its  practice  as  an  art  threatens  often  to  be  obliter- 
ated by  its  practice  as  a  trade  or  profession. 
There  are  many  institutions  in  this  country  which 
exist  almost  solely  for  equip})ing  those  who  join 
them  to  be  teachers  of  music — the  success  or 
failure    of    which    is    judged    on    almost    purely 

[  75  ] 


THE  PLACE  OF  MUSIC 

economic  grounds.  Now  the  teaching  of  music 
is  not  a  thing  for  which  every  musician  is  fitted, 
and  because  a  student  is  a  successful  performer, 
it  by  no  means  follows  that  he  or  she  will  be  a 
successful  teacher.  And  here,  I  think,  we  touch 
upon  a  very  real  weakness  of  some  of  these  in- 
stitutions. Those  who  join  them  in  order  to  learn 
a  trade,  whose  parents  invest  so  much  money  with 
the  idea  that  in  a  few  years  it  will  be  able  to  earn 
so  much  more,  do  not,  in  many  cases,  pursue 
their  studies  with  any  very  real  deep  devotion  to 
the  subject,  but  too  often  with  a  view  merely  to 
acquire  the  necessary  smattering  that  will  enable 
them  to  earn  fees  by  giving  lessons.  The  teachers 
of  music  are  thus  divided  very  sharply  into  two 
classes.  There  is  the  genuine  artist  who  works 
and  studies  hard,  seeking  always  to  perfect  him- 
self in  his  particular  branch  of  music  ;  a  singer, 
or  a  player  perhaps,  who  finds  himself  unable  to 
live  on  the  engagements  that  he  can  get  as  a  per- 
former. There  is  no  help  for  such  a  one,  except 
in  teaching  ;  not  the  teaching  of  geniuses,  but  of 
any  one  who  will  come — often  far  removed  from 
genius.  There  is  no  sadder  thing  in  the  world 
than  to  see  some  really  artistic  spirit  gradually 
crushed  and  wearied  by  the  drudgery  of  teaching, 
and  its  bright  wings,  that  aspired  to  mount  to  the 

[   76  ] 


IN  MODERN  LIFE 

sun,  soiled  with  the  dust  of  the  earth  in  the 
struggle  for  an  actual  living.  To  those  genuinely 
artistic  spirits,  thoroughly  sound  musicians  per- 
haps, but  without  the  superlativeness  of  voice  or 
technique  which  alone  to-day  commands  a  wide 
hearing,  the  modern  world  is  no  friendly  place, 
and  modern  life  is  no  easy  condition.  Such  people 
necessarily  live  completely  out  of  harmony  with 
the  world  about  them.  Their  ambition  is  the 
attainment  of  perfection,  and  perfection  is  a 
luxury  which  they  are  neither  allowed  to  attain 
themselves,  nor  assist  others  to  the  attainment  of. 
If  they  have  a  brilliant  pupil,  he  or  she  soon 
passes  into  other  hands  ;  the  dull  ones  require 
results  of  some  kind  in  the  shortest  possible  time, 
and  with  the  least  possible  expenditure  of  money; 
to  be  taught  how  to  get  through  a  song  or  piano- 
forte piece,  in  a  way  that  will  secure  the  admira- 
tion of  their  uncritical  friends,  is  all  they  want. 
And  in  the  deadly  struggle  for  life  the  artist  is 
again  and  again  forced  down  into  the  prosecution 
of  this  melancholy  business,  until  too  often  his  faith 
in  himself,  and  even  in  his  art,  is  lost,  and  he 
becomes  a  mere  drudge  in  the  economic  service. 
In  such  a  life  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  music  is  in 
harmony  with  modern  conditions. 

With   the  other  kind  of  teacher,   the  one  who 

[   77   ] 


THE  PLACE  OF  MUSIC 

deliberately  goes  into  music  as  into  any  other 
trade,  we  need  have  less  sympathy.  The  spread 
of  cheap  education  has  broken  down  the  barriers 
that  divided  one  economic  class  from  another,  and 
that  formerly  kept  the  different  departments  of 
labour  clearly  separated.  A  girl,  let  us  say,  who 
under  normal  conditions  would  have  earned  her 
living  as  a  shop  assistant,  or  a  clerk,  or  a  waitress, 
is  discovered  to  have  a  voice  above  the  average. 
In  former  days  she  would  not  have  had  the 
necessary  small  amount  of  general  education  to 
allow  her  to  pretend  to  be  a  teacher  of  anything  ; 
now,  however,  she  has  just  enough  to  disguise 
her  often  deep  and  extreme  ignorance.  She  is 
sent  to  a  college  of  music,  her  voice  cultivated, 
a  smattering  of  subsidiary  musical  studies  is 
added,  and  in  three  years  she  is  launched  out  on 
the  world  as  a  professional  singer  and  teacher. 
She  secures  a  few  local  engagements,  enough  to 
make  her  conspicuous  and  give  her  the  neces- 
sary advertisement,  and  pupils  come  to  her.  She 
has  probably  no  deep  musical  feeling,  and  was 
impelled  on  her  course  by  no  deep  artistic  im- 
pulse ;  what  she  knows  of  music  she  has  learned 
as  she  would  have  learned  any  other  trade.  The 
drudgery  of  teaching  is  to  her  merely  the  drudgery 
of  time  and  trouble  ;  there  is  no  soul  weariness, 

[  78  ] 


IN  MODERN  LIFE 

no  degradation  and  blunting-  of  fine  artistic  per- 
ception, for  she  has  possibly  very  little  soul  to 
weary,  and  probably  no  artistic  perception  to 
degrade.  She  makes  more  money  than  she  would 
have  made  at  some  of  the  other  trades  open  to 
her — for  a  little  while,  that  is  to  say.  But  what 
about  her  future  ?  This  branch  of  musical  eco- 
nomics does  not  always  bear  looking  into  ;  the 
position  of  the  old  artist  and  teacher,  with  which 
we  are  all  familiar,  is  a  sufficiently  melancholy  one. 
But  in  the  case  under  our  consideration  the  same 
commercial  instinct  which  prompted  the  young 
woman  to  take  up  music  has  probably,  at  the  right 
moment,  also  caused  her  to  drop  it  before  it  has 
finally  dropped  her.  And  there,  again,  music,  in 
the  true  sense  of  the  word,  enters  very  little  into 
the  affair,  and  we  cannot  say  that  here  music  is 
otherwise  than  out  of  touch  with  the  conditions 
of  modern  life. 


IV 

I  could  multiply  instances  of  this  kind  to  any 
extent,  and  in  a  way  rather  depressing  to  those 
who  love  and  study  music  for  itself;  but  they 
only  tend  to  strengthen  and  support  my  theory, 

[    79   ] 


THE  PLACE   OF  MUSIC 

that  all  attempts  to  change  the  character  of  music 
with  the  changed  character  of  our  age  ;  all 
attempts  to  force  it  from  what  it  is  into  some- 
thing that  it  is  not  and  cannot  be  ;  all  efforts 
to  turn  an  artistic  and  spiritual  thing  into  an 
economic  and  commercial  thing;  in  a  word,  all 
efforts  to  make  music  move  with  the  times  are 
bound  to  end  in  failure.  What  place,  then,  has 
music  in  our  modern  life?  I  believe  that  it  has  a 
very  real  place  and  use  with  us  to-day.  And  the 
great  use  of  music  in  modern  life,  it  seems  to  me, 
may  be  expressed  in  a  paradox.  Its  use  in  modern 
life  is  as  a  means  of  escape  from  modern  life.  Its 
value  to  us  lies,  not  in  its  likeness  to  the  con- 
ditions around  us,  but  in  its  difference  from  them ; 
not  in  its  correspondence  with  our  everyday  life, 
but  in  its  contrast  to  it.  It  is  a  lifebelt  which  will 
preserve  those  who  carry  it  from  altogether  sink- 
ing in  the  welter  of  sordid  material  conditions 
about  them ;  it  is  a  fiery  chariot  that  will  catch  us 
up  out  of  cares  and  struggles  here,  and  bear  us 
to  a  world  of  serene  and  exalted  things.  Poetry 
and  music,  as  Hector  Berlioz  said,  are  the  two 
wings  of  the  soul  ;  and  as  it  has  in  all  times  been 
regarded  as  a  means  of  rising  beyond  the  limita- 
tions of  material  conditions  into  the  free  world  of 
the  spirit,  so,  more  truly  to-day  than  ever,  it  may 

[   Ho   ] 


IN  MODERN   LIFE 

Still  be  regarded.  And  to  those  who  have  chosen 
music  as  the  main  work  and  study  of  their  lives, 
and  who  are  not  infrequently  confronted  with 
these  very  questions  of  its  apparent  incompati- 
bility with  the  general  run  of  the  world's  thought 
and  interest  to-day,  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  it 
will  be  a  great  strength,  a  great  consolation,  and 
a  great  encouragement  to  them  if  they  will  think 
of  music  in  this  way,  as  having  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  the  material  interests  and  affairs  of 
mankind,  but  as  belonging  to  another  world, 
another  dimension,  another  element. 

How  often  at  sea  is  one  not  awed  and  con- 
founded, if  one's  eye  is  raised  no  higher  than  the 
horizon,  by  the  tumult  and  desolation  of  the 
waters,  the  busy,  tiresome,  laborious  activities  of 
the  ship,  the  grinding  and  commotion,  the  throb- 
bing and  pulsing,  the  humming  of  winds  and 
roar  and  crashing  of  waves.  Yet  raise  your  e)'es 
above  the  salt  wilderness  of  water,  above  the 
labouring  ship,  above  the  swinging  mast-heads, 
and  there,  visibly  above  you,  is  a  world  of  peace, 
unbroken  and  eternal,  where  stars  are  shining 
quietly,  and  whither  the  tumults  of  the  sea  do 
not  reach.  And  those  of  us  with  the  cultivation 
and  perception  to  appreciate  great  music  have 
always  close  at  hand  just  such  another  world, 
F  [    8i    ] 


THE  PLACE  OF  MUSIC 

another  element  in  which  our  spirits  may  refresh 
themselves.  There  never  was  a  time  when  we 
more  needed  such  an  escape  ;  there  never  was  a 
time  when  material  things  were  so  pressing;  when 
the  clamour  and  tumult  of  the  world  was  so  out- 
rageous ;  when  the  ground-tone  of  life  itself  was 
so  deafening  as  to  dull  our  ears  to  all  its  finer 
harmonics.  We  need  music  more  than  ever  in  the 
world  to-day,  and  the  mission  of  those  who  culti- 
vate it  is  a  higher  and  more  sacred  mission  than 
ever  it  was.  It  is  no  longer  for  the  mere  adorn- 
ment and  elegance  of  life  that  they  labour,  but 
for  spiritual  life  itself;  it  is  not  to  give  the  musical 
spirit  more  balmy  airs  to  breathe,  but  for  its  very 
breath  they  are  fighting. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  there  are  certain 
kinds  of  music  that  appeal  to  us  more  easily 
to-day  than  other  kinds.  It  is  always  easy  to 
listen  to  Wagner  or  Chopin,  because  there  is  in 
all  their  music  a  trace  of  that  emotional  fever  that 
is  never  far  below  the  surface  of  our  modern  life  ; 
but  it  is  often  hard  to  get  into  the  necessary 
frame  of  mind  to  be  able  to  enjoy  the  music  of 
Beethoven  or  Mozart.  We  must  all  have  been 
aware  of  experiencing  this  difficulty  of  going  into 
a  concert-room  and  lookino-  forward  to  hearino* 
a  favourite  symphony,  and  finding  when  it  came 

[  82  ] 


IN  MODERN  LIFE 

to  be  played  that  it  had  nothing  to  say  to  us,  that 
we  were  not  in  the  mood  for  it,  that  we  were 
listening  to  its  notes  without  really  hearing  it. 
All  very  serious  music  requires  an  atmosphere,  a 
stimmiuig  to  be  established,  before  it  can  really 
come  to  life,  and  this  atmosphere  is  one  which  it 
is  increasingly  hard  to  establish,  in  proportion  as 
it  becomes  farther  and  farther  removed  from  the 
atmosphere  in  which  we  live  our  lives.  All  cham- 
ber music  needs  it;  for  example,  how  often  is  one 
really  in  the  mood  to  appreciate  or  even  enjoy  a 
Beethoven  quartette?  Such  things  have  really  no 
part  with  our  everyday  life ;  they  belong  to  a  re- 
gion of  things  into  which  we  must  deliberately  enter 
if  we  are  to  appreciate  or  enjoy  them,  and  that 
region  is  very  far  from  the  region  which  we  in- 
habit during  the  greater  part  of  our  waking  lives. 
In  a  simpler  age  it  lay  near  at  hand,  and  from 
the  daily  life  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  it  was  but  a  step  into  that  world,  now  so 
spiritually  removed  from  us.  Between  the  life  of 
London  to-day,  with  its  high  pressure,  its  domi- 
nation by  money,  its  fierce  battles,  the  endless 
struggle  for  life  that  is  going  on  in  it,  the  end- 
less grim  effort  to  keep  a  foothold  at  all  amid  its 
jostling  crowds,  the  tremendous  hurry iiig  tide 
and  torrent  of  activity  that  roars  for  ever  in  our 

[  83  ] 


THE  PLACE  OF  MUSIC 

ears — ah  !  between  that  and  the  quiet  Httle  world 
of  candleHght  in  a  home  in  some  German  coun- 
try town,  two  hundred  years  ago,  what  a  contrast ! 
Could  we  but  open  the  windows  of  our  mental 
vision,  and  see  the  little  family  group  surround- 
ing the  open  scores,  and  steeping  themselves  in 
the  joy  and  understanding  of  deep  and  true 
music,  what  peace  and  refreshment  might  we 
not  find  ! 

Well,  it  is  to  some  extent  possible  for  us  to  do 
it  still  ;  that  world  lies  still  within  our  reach, 
although  the  journey  to  it  becomes  longer  and 
longer  every  day.  It  is  very  hard  for  the  in- 
dividual to  reach  it  alone.  The  atmosphere  that 
I  have  spoken  of  may  be,  and  is,  still  established 
where  a  number  of  people  who  really  care  for 
music  gather  together  and  work  at  it.  Such 
things  as  quartette  parties  and  singing  societies, 
even  though  the  standard  of  performance  which 
they  attain  may  not  be  a  very  high  one,  are  in- 
valuable aids  to  the  cultivation  of  music  in  our 
life  to-day.  One  of  the  strongest  and  healthiest 
branches  of  English  music  is  to  be  found  in  the 
choral  societies  and  bands  of  the  provincial  towns 
of  England.  And  why?  Just  because  they  involve 
the  association  of  people,  the  meeting  together 
with  the  one  purpose  of  working  at  and  studying 

[  84  ] 


IN  MODERN  LIFE 

music,  and,  consequently,  that  temporary  escape 
from  ordinary  life,  which  I  have  emphasised  as 
being"  the  most  vakuible  thing"  that  music  can 
give  us  to-day. 

The  main  thing  to  be  striven  for  to-day  is  the 
cultivation  of  a  musical  atmosphere.  It  is  less 
important  for  the  moment  that  we  should  pro- 
duce new  music  than  that  we  should  cultivate  an 
atmosphere  in  which  music  that  has  already  been 
produced  can  be  heard  and  enjoyed.  That  really 
is  the  thing  that  is  in  danger  to-day.  There  is  no 
danger  that  we  shall  lose  our  technical  accom- 
plishments, for  there  never  was  an  age  when 
technique  was  in  such  a  high  state  of  perfection 
as  it  is  to-day.  It  is  unlikely  that  we  shall  lack 
performers  or  producers  of  music.  What  we  may 
come  to  lack  is  listeners — not  because  the  world 
will  have  grown  weary  of  music,  or  will  come  to 
need  it  any  the  less,  but  because  in  the  crowded 
material  conditions  of  modern  life  the  atmo- 
sphere in  which  people  can  listen  at  all  may  be- 
come less  and  less  easy  of  attainment.  And  the 
establishment  of  that  atmosphere,  whenever  and 
wherever  it  is  possible,  is  the  best  service  that 
we  can  render  music  to-day.  Thus  shall  we 
preserve  it,   not  as  part  of  our  modern   life,   but 

[   85   ] 


MUSIC  IN  MODERN  LIFE 

as  a  part  of  that  greater  life  that  is  not  ancient 
or  modern,  but  universal  and  eternal,  into  which 
our  spirits  may  escape  in  hours  of  heaviness  or 
oppression. 


[   86   ] 


THE   MUSICIAN   AS 
COMPOSER 


THE  MUSICIAN  AS 
COMPOSER 


IN  considering  the  position  In  the  modern 
world  of  the  musician  whose  office  it  is, 
not  to  hear  or  interpret  music,  but  to 
create  it,  we  must  realise  how  very  widely  the 
attitude  of  the  composer  towards  his  art  differs 
from  that  of  the  ordinary  person  who  merely 
takes  part,  or  hears,  or  enjoys  music.  The  attitude 
of  most  of  us  towards  music  is  a  passive  one. 
Music  is  a  thing  which  we  receive.  It  falls,  an  in- 
fluence from  outside  ourselves,  on  minds  occupied 
with  other  things  ;  it  tells  us  something  for  which 
we  are  not  prepared,  something  which  we  do  not 
know  ;  it  is  news  from  the  spiritual  world  ;  our 
attitude  towards  it  is  entirely  receptive.  But  the 
composer's  attitude  towards  it  is  different ;  with 
him  it  is  a  creative  thing.  It  comes  from  within 
himself,  and  is  uttered  forth  to  the  world  around 
him  ;  it  is  a  fountain  that  is  always  springing  in 

[  89  ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

his  mind  ;  his  mind  is  always  occupied  with  it,  it 
is  always  there,  and  when  he  utters  it,  it  is  only 
that  a  part  of  his  mind  is  projected  into  the 
surrounding  world,  and  endowed  with  form  and 
utterance.  Even  when  he  is  listening  to  music 
not  his  own  he  more  often  than  not  hears  it 
from  the  composer's  standpoint  rather  than  the 
hearer's  ;  he  sees  it,  not  as  a  stream  coming  to- 
wards him,  but  as  a  stream  going  out  from  his 
direction  even  though  its  source  was  not  within 
himself.  He  thinks  of  it  as  thouo-h  he  had  written 
it  himself;  in  short,  his  attitude  is  the  very 
opposite  of  that  of  most  of  us. 

At  first  sight  it  would  seem  as  though  this 
made  for  disunion  and  lack  of  sympathy  between 
the  composer  and  his  audience  ;  but  it  is  not 
really  so,  for  it  is  a  comparatively  modern  dis- 
tinction, that  between  composer  and  listener.  In 
its  origin,  primitive  music  knew  no  such  thing  as 
a  composer.  The  performer  came  first,  for  I  sup- 
pose someone  once  sang  in  the  world,  sang  for 
very  joy  of  life,  when  perhaps  there  was  no  other 
human  soul  to  listen,  and  undoubtedly  the  per- 
former is  the  most  ancient  and  venerable  of  the 
musical  brotherhood.  The  audience  would  come 
next ;  for  there  would  come  a  day  when  the  singer 
who  sang  to  himself  would  sing  to  someone  else, 

[  90  ] 


AS  COMPOSER 

and  wish  to  have  a  sharer  in  his  emotion  of  joy 
or  ardour  or  melancholy.  But  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  a  composer  in  those  days,  except  in  so  far 
as  the  singer  was  the  composer  ;  it  would  be  more 
true  to  say  that  even  the  singer  did  not  consciously 
invent  what  he  sang,  but  was  simply  inspired  by 
emotion  within  himself,  or  by  the  influence  of 
things  external  to  himself,  to  utter  some  vague 
and  primitive  expression  of  elementary  and  primi- 
tive emotions.  The  composer,  in  that  case,  was 
no  individual  man  or  woman,  but  the  spirit  of 
life  itself  singing  in  the  heart,  and  uttering  itself 
in  the  voice  of  man.  In  short,  in  its  primitive 
beginnings  music  was  universal,  like  speech  or 
sight  or  hearing  ;  it  belonged  to  everybody,  and 
nobody  thought  of  associating  any  of  its  varieties 
of  expression  with  any  particular  individual. 

But  as  time  went  on,  it  would  be  noticed  that 
of  all  the  men  and  women  who  made  use  of 
rhythms  or  vocal  melodies  to  express  their  emo- 
tions some  had  a  greater  freedom  of  range  than 
others  ;  that  it  was  more  instantl\-  apparent  what 
certain  singers  meant  to  express  than  what  others 
meant  ;  that  it  was  more  agreeable  to  listen  to 
some  than  to  others  ;  that  while  the  emotions 
expressed  by  some  were  always  agreeable,  those 
expressed  by  others   were  always   disagreeable  ; 

[  91  ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

that  the  utterance  of  some  gave  pleasure,  and  the 
utterance  of  others,  pain.  If  we  were  all  obliged 
to  express  our  particular  emotion  of  the  moment 
in  song,  exactly  the  same  result  would  be  apparent; 
an  impartial  jury  would  decide  that,  quite  apart 
from  the  nature  of  the  emotion  which  we  were 
trying  to  express,  the  mere  manner  of  expression 
would,  in  some  cases,  be  a  pleasant  thing  to 
listen  to,  and  in  other  cases  not  pleasant  at  all. 
It  is  easy  to  imagine,  then,  that  people  in  the 
primitive  world  would  begin  to  cultivate  this 
pleasure  ;  that  when  it  was  known  that  such  and 
such  a  member  of  the  tribe  was  in  love,  or  in 
a  temper,  or  was  bewailing  the  loss  of  something, 
it  would  be  worth  while  strolling  round  in  the 
direction  of  his  cave  in  order  to  hear  the  per- 
formance. We  may  take  this  as  an  indication 
that  even  in  the  Flint  and  Stone  ages  there  may 
have  been  such  people  as  *^stars."  From  grubbing 
among  the  roots,  and  chipping  experimentally 
with  bones  and  flints,  it  would  be  a  pleasant 
change  to  listen  to  a  fellow-creature  making  a 
succession  of  vocal  sounds,  and  to  speculate  as  to 
what  they  may  mean.  In  some  such  way  may  the 
aesthetic  life  have  had  its  origin. 

This  discovery  that  some  people  were  better 
equipped  in  the  vocal  expression  of  emotion  than 

[   92   ] 


^J'  COMPOSER 

Others  would  lead,  first  of  all,  to  an  unconscious 
differentiating  between  the  vocal  and  the  unvocal, 
to  a  certain  degree  of  competition,  to  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  gift  of  musical  expression  in  order 
that,  in  love  or  battle,  or  for  any  of  the  time- 
honoured  guerdons  for  which  men  have  struggled 
and  contested  since  the  world  began,  this  gift 
might  be  used  as  an  advantage  ;  and  there  would 
come  a  preference  for  a  certain  kind  of  musical 
expression,  and  the  discovery  that  it  was  to  be 
heard  at  its  best  from  such  and  such  a  man  ;  just 
as  later,  when  people  began  to  tell  each  other 
tales  and  stories,  some  men  got  great  renown  as 
tale-tellers,  not  only  for  the  substance  of  their 
stories,  but  for  their  manner  in  telling  them.  And 
later  still,  when  people  wanted  songs  of  their 
own,  but  could  not  make  them  or  sing  them  to 
their  own  satisfaction,  when  they  perhaps  could 
think  of  words  to  sing,  but  not  of  pleasant  sounds 
to  fit  to  the  words,  they  would  apply  to  some  of 
these  gifted  ones  to  fit  a  lilt  or  a  cadence  to  their 
halting  words.  And  thus  began  the  differentiation 
of  music  as  to  its  creative  and  receptive  aspects  ; 
thus,  in  short,  was  evolved  the  composer. 

But  the  composer  of  to-day  is  far  removed  from 
his  primitive  ancestor.  How  does  he  stand  ?  What 
is  his  equipment?  He  has  become  the  master  and 

[    93    ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

controller  of  a  battery  of  technical  and  scientific 
apparatus  that,  strange  to  say,  has  not  restricted, 
but  enormously  increased,  his  power  to  express 
emotion.  We  will  consider  three  things  about  this 
composer  :  first,  where  his  equipment  has  come 
from  ;  secondly,  what  it  is  ;  and  thirdly,  what  he 
is  to  do  with  it.  And  first,  as  to  the  source  of  the 
modern  composer's  equipment  or  technique.  It 
rests,  in  my  opinion,  broadly  on  one  thing  ;  I 
mean  (thinking  for  the  moment  of  music  as  it 
appears  written,  and  not  as  one  listens  to  it),  the 
horizontal  aspect  of  music  as  opposed  to  the 
vertical  aspect.  We  are  all  familiar  with  musical 
notation,  those  staves  of  five  lines  on  which  are 
noted  signs  expressing  sounds  of  greater  or  lesser 
duration,  and  of  higher  or  lower  pitch.  I  want 
you  to  imagine  for  a  moment  the  appearance  of 
a  melody  written  along  one  such  stave  : 


q- 


=l=g^-EF^=r=g'=^ 


Sgi 


a  kind  of  waving  horizontal  ribbon  of  notes — let 
us  say  a  banner  of  sound,  like  a  banner  streaming 
in  the  wind.  And  now  think  of  a  chord  as  it 
appears  written  on  such  a  stave — a  vertical  bar 

[   94   ] 


AS  COMPOSER 

of  notes  all  sounding"  togfether,  expressing  one 
short  pulse  of  sound,  and  not  a  prolonged  con- 
nected stream  of  sound. 


g 


w 


The  harmonic  chord  Is  like  a  staff  planted  in 
the  ground  from  which  the  banner  of  melody 
floats  and  flows.  Now  there  are  certain  kinds  of 
music  which,  looked  at  on  the  printed  page, 
appear  to  us  in  horizontal  lines  of  melody,  un- 
interrupted by  the  vertical  pulses  of  chords.  A 
fugue  of  Bach's  is  a  good  example  of  such  music. 
And  there  are  other  kinds  of  music  which  look 
like  a  succession  of  chords,  the  appearance  of 
which  is  that  of  a  succession  of  vertical  lines,  or 
columns  of  notes,  scattered  over  the  page.  A 
mazurka  of  Chopin's,  with  the  exception  of  the 
ornamented  stream  of  melody  on  the  top,  would 
present  this  appearance.  And  these  two  kinds  of 
music,  which  I  call  vertical  and  horizontal,  re- 
present an  immense  cleavage  and  difference  in 
method  of  musical  expression.  The  oldest  forms 
of  written  music  that  are  at  all  scientific  arose 
from  the  old  church  melodies,  and  from  the  dis- 
covery that  it  was  possible  to  combine  two  notes 

[   95    ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

of  different  pitch,  that  it  was  even  possible  to 
combine  two  simple  melodies  simultaneously, 
provided  the  notes  composing  them  were  written 
in  accordance  with  certain  simple  acoustic  rules. 
From  them  was  evolved  the  quite  elaborate  poly- 
phonic music  of  Palestrina  and  the  Italian  Church 
school,  which  was  horizontal  music  pure  and 
simple.  Music  continued  to  be  written  in  this 
way,  and  although  very  archaic  and  beautiful  and 
suitable  for  the  grave  expression  of  church  music, 
it  was  an  essentially  narrow  and  restricted  form 
of  expression,  in  which  rhythm  was  lacking  ; 
until  Bach,  by  informing  it  with  freedom  of 
movement  and  genius  of  melodic  invention,  gave 
it  new  life,  and  adapted  it  to  practically  the 
whole  needs  of  musical  expression  at  the  time. 

The  genius  of  Bach,  however,  was  unique.  No 
one  before  him — and  certainly  no  one  since — has 
been  able  to  combine  the  beauty  of  outline,  per- 
fection of  classical  feeling  and  freedom  and 
height  and  depth  of  expression,  with  severity  of 
form  in  the  way  that  he  combined  them.  The 
result  was  that  the  horizontal  kind  of  music,  in 
which  Bach  achieved  such  perfection,  did  not 
develop  in  his  successors,  but  rather  for  a  time 
went  back.  The  next  development  of  music  was 
in  what  is  called  the  romantic  direction  ;  that  is 

[  96  ] 


AS  COMPOSER 

to  say,  it  broke  away  from  strictness  and  severity 
of  form,  or  rather  developed  itself  in  newer  and 
freer  forms.  After  the  fugue  came  the  sonata, 
and  as  the  sonata  did  not  lend  itself  to  the  hori- 
zontal treatment  of  music,  it  followed,  as  a  natural 
result,  that  music  after  Bach  became  vertical 
ao*ain.  The  music  of  Beethoven  and  Mozart  is 
practically  all  of  the  vertical  kind  ;  and  the  great 
influence  of  Beethoven  on  musical  form,  the  free- 
dom and  range  of  expression  which  he  introduced 
into  music,  practically  kept  what  I  call  the  ver- 
tical form  of  music  in  existence  for  a  century. 
Mendelssohn  showed  a  slight  tendency  to  revert 
to  the  polyphonic  style,  the  horizontal  method  of 
music,  but  it  was  only  a  slight  tendency  ;  and 
with  Schumann,  Chopin,  and  Meyerbeer  the 
vertical  form  of  instrumental  music  reached  its 
extreme  of  freedom  and  development.  But  with 
Wagner  a  great  change  came.  I  do  not  think  it 
is  sufficiently  realised  yet  how  directly  in  the  line 
of  descent  from  Bach  Wagner  stands.  W^ith 
Wagner  music  became  horizontal  again,  and  has 
remained  so  ever  since  ;  by  that  I  mean  that  its 
greatest  development  has  been  along  the  line  ot 
polyphonic  treatment.  But  Wagner  did  more  than 
merely  restore  music  to  the  horizontal,  he  enor- 
mously developed  that  form  of  treatment  ;  and 

G  [    07     1 


THE  MUSICIAN 

next  after  Bach,  the  modern  composer's  equip- 
ment comes  chiefly  from  Wagner.  In  Bach's  day 
the  composer  thought,  so  to  speak,  in  voices  ; 
four  parts,  or  six  parts,  or  eight  parts  were  the 
extremes  to  which  his  polyphonic  treatment 
went ;  but  BerHoz  and  Wagner,  by  their  enor- 
mous freedom  and  extension  of  the  use  of  the 
orchestra,  entirely  changed  the  composer's  method 
of  conceiving  music.  Instead  of  four  or  eight 
parts,  or  as  many  parts  as  there  were  voices, 
Wagner  had  as  many  parts  as  there  were  instru- 
ments or  tone  colours  ;  and  by  recognising  the 
individuality  of  every  instrument  in  the  orchestra, 
by  realising  that  every  part  should  be  a  melody, 
instead  of  only  the  top  part,  he  did  for  the  orches- 
tra what  Bach  had  done  for  the  chorus  ;  music 
was  horizontal  again,  but  enormously  enriched 
and  complicated  by  the  fact  that  the  horizontal 
lines  were  not  mere  voices  of  different  pitch,  but 
streams  of  different  tone  colour,  and  of  different 
quality.  The  fabric  that  in  Bach's  hands  had 
been  woven  of  one  sober  colour  became  shot 
with  myriad  shades  and  hues,  so  that  the  instru- 
mental composer  may  now  be  said  to  think  in 
tone  colours  rather  than  in  voices.  And  every 
one  of  these  colours  and  shades  of  colour  is  now 
recognised    by   the    composer  as    having,    so   to 

[  98  ] 


AS  COMPOSER 

Speak,  a  right  to  individual  existence  ;  one  part 
of  the  horizontal  fabric  is  as  important  as  another, 
and  the  modern  ear  is  trained  not  merely  to  listen 
to  the  notes  at  the  top  of  the  column  of  sound, 
but  to  attend  to,  and  listen  for,  simultaneous 
melodies  sounding  throughout  the  whole  stream 
of  sound.  The  most  modern  of  modern  composers, 
Debussy,  is  also  in  the  direct  line  of  Bach  and 
Wagner.  The  strangeness  of  his  music,  which  is 
chiefly  due  to  his  use  of  a  modal  scale,  and  the 
consequent  unfamiliarity  to  our  ears  of  so  many 
of  his  harmonies  and  his  sequences,  does  not 
disguise  the  fact  that  this  extremely  delicate  and, 
in  some  ways,  decadent  art  of  his,  rests  not  on 
mere  waywardness,  but  on  a  profound  scholar- 
ship, and  a  deep  knowledge  of  those  fundamental 
principles  which  Bach  fixed  for  ever  as  the  laws 
of  music. 

II 

So  much  for  the  sources  of  the  modern  com- 
poser's equipment.  We  will  now  consider  for  a 
little  what  that  equipment  is — what  are  the  means 
at  the  disposal  of  the  artist  who  wishes  to  give 
musical  expression  to  his  ideas.  One  is  struck  at 
once  by  the  enormous  extent  and   complication 

[   99    ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

of  the  mere  technical  side  of  this  art  as  compared 
with  any  other.  Compare  the  materials  of  the 
composer's  art  with  that,  say,  of  the  painter's  or 
the  sculptor's  or  the  poet's.  The  poet,  given  pen 
and  paper,  or  one  human  voice,  can  complete 
and  present  a  masterpiece  ;  the  sculptor  needs 
some  clay,  a  few  cloths,  and  a  block  of  stone  or 
marble,  a  mallet  and  half  a  dozen  chisels,  and 
quite  primitive  steel  instruments  ;  the  painter 
needs  a  few  brushes,  four  or  five  elementary  pig- 
ments, a  little  oil,  a  knife,  and  a  plane  surface  : 
with  such  materials,  and  nothing  more,  the 
greatest  pictorial  masterpiece  in  the  world  is 
realised.  But  consider  the  resources  of  the  com- 
poser, and  especially  of  the  modern  composer — 
consider  what  he  has  to  acquire  before  he  can 
handle  the  simplest  material.  If  he  is  a  great 
natural  performer,  it  is  true  that  he  can  impro- 
vise his  compositions,  and  so  produce  his  master- 
pieces with  no  other  machinery  but  his  fingers 
and  a  keyboard  ;  but  even  so,  such  a  performer 
only  touches  a  corner  of  the  great  field  of  musical 
possibility.  The  modern  composer  has  first  of  all 
to  master  what  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  an 
extremely  intricate  system  of  mathematics.  The 
natural  inner  ear  of  the  composer  may  lead  him 
to  write   music   well   and   grammatically,    but  it 

[    100   ] 


^J-  COMPOSER 

does  not  release  him  from  the  necessity  of  know- 
ing" that  compHcated  mathematical  system  of 
notes  which  we  call  harmony  and  counterpoint  ; 
his  genius  may  enable  him  to  grasp  it  without 
trouble,  and  almost  by  instinct,  but  he  is  bound 
to  have  it.  He  has  to  study  the  human  voice  in 
its  several  varieties,  and  to  know  what  it  is  and  is 
not  capable  of.  He  has  to  know  the  construction 
and  technique  of  keyed  instruments,  such  as  the 
pianoforte  and  organ  ;  of  another  group  of  in- 
struments known  as  stringed  instruments  ;  of 
another  group  known  as  wood-wind  instruments;  of 
another  entirely  different  group  known  as  brass  in- 
struments ;  and  of  another  known  as  instruments 
of  percussion.  Within  these  several  groups  are 
again  varieties  and  subdivisions,  containing  in- 
struments and  technique  and  a  method  of  playing 
which  are  entirely  different,  and  the  study  and 
performance  of  each  one  of  which  is  a  life's  work 
for  one  man.  Further,  the  composer  must  know 
by  experience  all  the  effects  to  be  got  by  the 
countless  changes  in  combination  of  all  these 
instruments,  and  of  their  combination  collect- 
ively and  individually  with  voices.  And  when  he 
has  done  this  he  has,  so  to  speak,  only  dealt  with 
the  raw  material  of  his  equipment.  He  has  to  study 
musical  form,  and  to  train  his  mind  in  qualities 

[    loi    ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

of  symmetry  and  balance  and  proportion  ;  to 
learn  that  most  difficult  of  all  things,  how  to  de- 
velop a  theme  of  a  few  notes,  and  to  make  out  of 
it  a  fabric  of  sound  which  may  last  continuously, 
perhaps  for  half  an  hour,  which  will  not  become 
monotonous,  but  which  will  be  so  related  to  the 
original  theme  of  a  few  notes  that  it  all  seems  to 
grow  and  flow  naturally  out  of  it.  And  having 
done  all  that,  and  conceived  his  music  in  his  mind, 
he  has  to  begin  the  highly  difficult,  laborious,  and 
complicated  work  of  writing  it  down  on  paper,  in 
such  a  form  that  the  music,  which  he  has  hitherto 
heard  only  in  his  own  brain,  will  be  exactly  re- 
produced by  perhaps  a  hundred  different  men, 
playing  instruments  of  perhaps  thirty  different 
kinds.  And  thousands  and  thousands  of  men  in 
factories  all  over  the  world — metal-workers,  cabi- 
net-makers, fitters,  polishers,  tuners,  packers,  will 
all  have  been  working  in  order  that  the  instru- 
ments shall  be  ready  to  be  played — all  this  before 
a  single  orchestral  chord  imagined  by  the  com- 
poser can  be  heard  by  his  audience.  Of  all  these 
resources,  of  all  this  technique,  the  composer  has 
to  be  master  and  controller;  by  these  devious  and 
complicated  channels  must  his  idea  flow  from 
him  to  you  ;  through  all  this  veil  of  interposed 
mechanism  and   personalities   must  his   emotion 

[     I02    ] 


AS  COMPOSER 

reach  to  you.  And  when  we  remember  that 
what  we  call  musical  ideas  are  by  far  the  most 
delicate  and  most  subtle  form  of  artistic  expres- 
sion, is  it  not  the  more  amazing  that  they  should 
be  able  thus  to  survive  the  transit  of  an  inter- 
vening space  so  crowded  with  deflecting  and 
interposing  influences  ? 

Consider,  again,  the  composer's  own  attitude 
towards  his  art,  for  upon  that  more  than  any- 
thing else  the  character  of  his  music  depends, 
and  by  that  the  character  of  a  whole  period  of 
music  is  largely  determined.  One  of  the  ten- 
dencies of  modern  life  is  towards  a  great  increase 
of  self-consciousness.  This  is  true  of  all  the  arts  ; 
it  is  true  in  our  daily  intercourse  and  conduct  ;  it 
is  true  especially  with  regard  to  music.  Let  us 
imagine,  if  we  can,  Bach's  attitude  towards  his 
art,  and  compare  it  with  even  that  of  Wagner, 
who  is  far  from  representing  the  extreme  of  self- 
consciousness.  Bach  was  an  artist,  but  he  was 
also  an  official  with  considerable  duties,  and  a 
citizen  who  had  his  living  to  earn.  He  lived  a  life 
of  routine,  playing  the  organ,  training  the  various 
choirs  under  his  charge,  teaching  his  pupils,  and 
writing  his  music.  But  it  is  almost  certain  that 
Bach  never  sat  down  deliberately  to  write  music 
for  no  other  reason  than  to  express  some  emotion 

[    103   ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

with  which  his  soul  was  charged.  He  wrote  music 
because  it  came  in  the  way  of  his  daily  occupa- 
tion to  write  music.   For  the  various  services  in 
which  he  was  engaged,   for  various  functions  of 
the  church  and  of  the  town  in  which  he  lived,  it 
was  necessary  to  have  music  ;  and  because  the 
music   in   existence  was   not  good   enough,   and 
because  he  could  not  bear  to  have  anything  but 
the  best,   he  generally  wrote  his  own  music.    It 
was  even  expected  of  him.  All  the  grandeur  and 
nobility  of  feeling,  all  the  perfection  of  form  that 
we  find  in  his  music,  were  not  deliberately  and 
self-consciously  put  into  it ;  they  came  there  only 
because  they  were  part  of  his  being  and  character, 
and  were  found  in  whatever  he  did,  naturally  and 
inevitably.    It    is   impossible    for   us   to  think   of 
Bach  going  away,  even  if  he  had  had  the  means 
and  time  to  do  so,   to  Italy,  let  us  say,   for  six 
months    in    order    to    produce    a    masterpiece.    I 
doubt  whether  any  single  work  of  Bach's  took 
more  than   the  half  of  six  months  to  compose, 
and  the  greatest  of  them  all  came  in  the  way  of 
his  daily  life — things  that  had  to  be  done  by  a 
certain  time,   for  a  certain  place,  and  that  were 
magnificent,   not  because  Bach  had  sought  and 
found  such  and  such  an  inspiration,  but  because 
he  could  not  escape  artistic  magnificence  in  what- 

[    104  ] 


AS  COMPOSER 

ever  he  did.  In  other  words,  Bach  was  a  workman 
who  did  his  daily  work;  and,  being-  a  great  genius 
also,  that  work  outlived  the  day  for  which  it  was 
written,  and  lives  still  in  the  form  of  masteri)ieces; 
but  Bach  did  not  know  that  they  were  master- 
pieces, nor  realise  how  profoundly  they  would 
affect  the  music  of  the  future. 

And  now  turn  to  Wagner,  that  strange, 
philosophical,  artistic,  political  revolutionary, 
whose  only  regular  work  in  life  that  he  ever  did 
was  the  work  of  conducting-  and  directing  operas, 
and  who  had  no  office  or  post  which  required 
him  to  compose.  On  the  contrary,  the  world  very 
soon  showed  him  that  it  did  not  require  him  to 
compose  ;  that  it  would  make  it  as  difficult  as 
possible  for  him  to  compose  ;  that  it  would  try  to 
starve  and  discourage  him  out  of  all  idea  of 
composing.  Wagner  had  none  of  the  apparent 
outward  signs  of  a  great  creative  musician.  He 
played  the  pianoforte  execrably,  and,  I  believe, 
had  no  gift  of  improvisation.  Moreover,  far  from 
being  like  Bach,  incapable  of  writing  anything 
that  was  not  stamped  with  beauty  and  perfection, 
Wagner  was  not  only  capable  of  writing'-,  but  did 
write  a  considerable  amount  of  music  that  can 
only  be  described  as  rubbish,  that  was  not  even 
worth  preserving,  and  was  probably  never  worth 

[  '05  ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

performing-.  But  a  still  greater  difference  existed 
between  his  attitude  and  that  of  Bach  towards 
their  art.  Bach,  as  I  have  said,  came  to  his  in  the 
course  of  his  everyday  life  ;  with  Wagner,  the 
mere  decision  to  compose  came  comparatively 
late  in  his  career,  and  was  incredibly  mixed  up 
with,  and  in  some  ways  the  outcome  of,  his  views 
on  philosophy,  religion,  ethics,  politics,  and 
economy.  It  is  true  that  the  form  in  which  he 
wrote  was  immensely  complex  and  vast  in  scale 
compared  with  anything  that  Bach  did  ;  but  in  so 
far  as  they  were  both  creators  and  inventors  of 
music,  the  comparison  between  their  respective 
attitudes  holds  good.  Wagner  prepared  himself 
with  extraordinary  care  for  the  act  of  composing; 
the  place  in  which  he  was  living  mattered  enor- 
mously; he  made  journeys,  changed  house,  town, 
country  of  residence,  cultivated  this  companion 
or  abandoned  that,  all  for  no  other  purpose  than 
to  assist  himself  into  the  right  frame  of  mind  in 
which  he  could  compose.  Years  would  be  spent 
on  a  single  work  from  its  inception  to  its  com- 
pletion ;  he  had  to  live  with  it  in  misery  and 
exaltation,  through  all  the  fits  of  despondency 
and  of  torture  that  seemed  inseparable  from  the 
modern  act  of  artistic  production,  tearing  himself 
into   tatters  until   the  work  was  born  and  com- 

[    io6   ] 


AS  COMPOSER 

pleted.  Compared  with  the  circumstances  attend- 
ing a  production  of  anything  of  Bach's,  it  was  a 
kind  of  emotional  earthquake.  That  it  was  all 
justified,  that  it  was  all  necessary,  and  that  it 
was  all  a  thousand  times  worth  while,  no  culti- 
vated person  of  to-day  can  be  found  to  deny. 
Like  Bach,  the  work  that  Wagner  has  given  us 
is  not  only  immortal  in  itself,  but  it  has  influenced 
and  stamped  itself  upon  the  work  of  all  musicians 
who  followed.  His  influence,  like  Bach's,  has  run 
throughout  the  whole  life  of  modern  music,  so 
that  even  people  who  have  never  heard  a  single 
work  of  his  are  unconsciously  influenced  and 
affected  by  it  in  their  musical  ideas. 

But  compared  with  the  composer  of  to-day 
Wagner  is,  already  old-fashioned,  in  some  ways  he 
is  early  Victorian  to  us.  It  would  not  add  anything 
to  the  influence  of  a  composer  to-day  that  he 
should  write  voluminous  prose  works  to  explain 
his  philosophic  position,  or  his  position  in  politics, 
or  his  attitude  towards  vegetarianism.  That  kind 
of  tedious  and  diffuse  self-explanation  is  out  of 
date,  and  a  man  has  to  be  a  very  great  man 
indeed  before  we  will  listen  to  him  with  any 
patience  on  subjects  other  than  those  of  which 
he  has  made  himself  a  master.  But  the  self-con- 
sciousness remains,  and  has,   I  think,   increased. 

[    107    ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

Wag-ner,  at  any  rate,  had  a  mission,  which  was 
to  reform  the  opera  and  put  the  spirit  of  life  into 
what  had  become  a  dry  conventional  form  ;  but  it 
is  very  hard  for  a  composer  to-day  to  have  any 
very  serious  musical  mission.  He  is  confronted 
with  the  naked  necessity  of  merely  having  to 
make  music  ;  and  though  that  is  the  only  thing- 
for  a  composer  to  do,  the  only  thing  which  we 
want  him  to  do,  it  is  not  always  easy  for  him  to 
do  it  deliberately  and  self-consciously.  So  much 
of  the  most  beautiful  music  in  the  world  has  been 
produced,  as  it  were,  accidentally — because  some 
one  had  a  birthday,  or  was  being  crowned  or 
married  or  buried — that  we  do  not  always  remem- 
ber how  comparatively  small  a  proportion  of 
great  music  has  been  produced  deliberately,  just 
because  the  musician  was  a  composer,  and  thought 
he  had  better  compose.  The  works  of  the  kind  of 
which  I  have  been  speaking  did  not  depend  for 
their  production  on  turning  out  great  and  strik- 
ing ;  they  would  have  been  performed  in  any 
case. 

But  nowadays  the  modern  composer  has  very 
few  definite  certainties  of  performance  ;  he  has 
to  write  something  for  no  particular  place  and 
no  particular  occasion,  something  quite  in  the 
air,    and  to  hope  that  some  conductor  will  take 

[    io8   ] 


^J'  COMPOSER 

the  trouble  to  look  at  the  score,  and  havinqf 
looked  at  it,  think  it  interesting-  or  striking- 
enough  to  please  an  audience  that  pays  for  its 
seats,  and  expects  to  get  what  pleases  it.  And 
that  is  a  great  handicap  to  the  composer,  and  a 
great  temptation  to  the  development  of  a  morbid 
self-consciousness,  and  is,  in  the  long  run,  damag- 
ing to  art  generally.  The  same  thing  has  seriously 
damaged  the  art  of  painting.  The  old  master- 
pieces were  practically  all  commissioned  works, 
pictures  painted  for  a  certain  place,  with  a  de- 
finite view  to  their  effect  in  a  certain  position,  so 
that  the  artist  was  considerably  helped  and  directed 
in  his  intention  by  the  actual  limitations  of  his 
commission.  Now  people  no  longer  commission 
pictures  to  be  painted  for  certain  places  in  their 
houses,  nor,  except  in  the  case  of  rare  municipal 
buildings,  are  artists  commissioned  to  decorate 
public  buildings  ;  with  the  result  that  painters 
have  nothing  to  paint  for,  except  exhibitions, 
which  of  all  possible  environments  for  a  picture 
are  utterly  and  indisputably  the  worst.  In  fact, 
it  may  be  said  that  a  picture  deliberately  painted 
in  order  to  look  well  and  have  a  telling  effect  at 
such  an  exhibition  as  the  Royal  Academy  cannot 
possibly  be  a  good  picture.  And  though  it  would 
not   be  true  to  say  that  a  musical   composition, 

[    109   ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

deliberately  composed  in  order  to  become  popular 
with  conductors  of  concerts,  could  not  be  a  good 
composition,  it  is  true  to  say  that  that  particular 
kind  of  inspiration  is  not  a  wholesome  one  for 
the  composer,  and  does  not  make  either  for  great 
sincerity  or  great  loftiness  in  the  composition. 


Ill 

What,  then,  should  be  the  composer's  inspira- 
tion ?  To  what  use  should  he  put  this  vast 
technical  equipment  with  which  the  development 
of  the  art  has  provided  him  ?  What  is  to  be  his 
message  to  the  modern  world  ?  These  are  ques- 
tions which  each  individual  composer  must  answer 
for  himself,  for  they  are  of  vital  importance  to  him, 
and  to  the  work  which  he  produces.  As  for  his 
inspiration,  that  must  come  directly  from  within 
himself  if  his  music  is  to  make  any  mark,  if  it 
is  to  have  any  real  life  or  any  place  in  the  world 
of  true  art.  This,  as  I  have  said  before,  is  not  an 
age  of  deep  musical  inspiration,  but  it  is  an  age 
of  extreme  technical  accomplishment,  and  there 
are  many  people  engaged  in  composing  music 
more  as  an  exercise  of  their  technical  accomplish- 
ment than  in  obedience  to  any   impelling  force 

[    i>o    ] 


AS  COMPOSER 

from  within.  These  composers  and  their  work  are 
easily  recognised  by  the  fact  that  their  inspiration 
is  always  external  ;  they  have  to  go  to  poetry  or 
legend,  steep  themselves  in  literature  of  some 
kind,  and  then,  as  it  were,  reproduce  it  in  the 
form  of  music.  But  this  at  its  best  is  only  a  kind 
of  musical  translation,  or  paraphrase  in  sound  of 
ideas  which  have  already  been  conveyed  to  the 
mind  by  the  written  word  ;  and  in  this  case  it  is 
the  author  or  poet  who  is  the  true  inventor,  and 
the  musician  who  is  only  a  translator  or  inter- 
preter. The  modern  symphonic  poem  is  a  con- 
stant example  of  this  method  of  composing,  and 
although,  no  doubt,  the  best  of  modern  music  is 
put  into  symphonic  poems,  the  fact  that  it  is  so 
rather  supports  my  argument  that  there  is  rather 
a  dearth  of  original  inspiration  for  music  pure 
and  simple  in  this  age.  That  is  one  reason  why  I 
regard  the  music  of  Tschaikovsky,  and  some  of 
Elgar's  music,  as  having  so  important  a  place  in 
modern  art.  It  stands  out  quite  by  itself  as  music 
that  had  to  be  uttered  ;  it  has  no  programme,  it 
is  not  a  representation  of  anything  already  ex- 
pressed in  any  other  form  ;  whatever  it  is,  it  comes 
straight  from  the  composer's  own  being,  and 
speaks  directly  to  us  from  him.  And  that  is  wh)- 
I  regard  Elgar's  symphony  in  A  Flat  as  a  work 

[    III    ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

on  a  higher  scale  than,  say,  the  finest  of  Strauss's 
symphonic  poems,  although  there  is  occasionally 
music  of  a  far  higher  order  to  be  found  in 
Strauss  than  in  anything  Elgar  has  written.  But 
I  believe  that  it  is  better  to  write  music  like 
Elgar's  on  the  higher  plane,  than  to  write  music 
like  Strauss's  on  a  plane  that  is  a  little  less  high 
than  that.  These  two  men  represent  among 
modern  composers  the  two  paths  between  which 
the  composer  is  bound  to  choose  ;  and  it  is  for 
himself  to  say  whether  he  will  make  musical 
translations  of  literary  ideas,  or  whether  he  will 
wait  until  he  has  musical  ideas  pure  and  simple 
to  express. 

There  is,  it  is  true,  another  source  of  inspira- 
tion, represented  by  the  music  of  Debussy — the 
school  of  colour  and  atmosphere.  Here  the  in- 
spiration is  not  from  ideas  or  emotions,  nor  can 
it  be  described  as  what  used  to  be  called  ^^abso- 
lute"  music,  and  what  I  still  mean  when  I  speak 
of  music  which  is  inspired  purely  from  within  the 
composer's  own  being.  The  method  of  this  school 
is  rather  to  throw  upon  the  auditory  senses 
masses  of  tone  colour,  and  to  make  them  fade 
and  dissolve  into  each  other,  so  that  wave  after 
wave  of  cloud-like  colour  floats  upon  the  hearing. 
It  is  the  most  purely  sensuous  and,   if  one  may 

[      112      ] 


AS  COMPOSER 

say  so,  physiological  of  all  musical  effects,  and  it 
can  be  used  with  great  subtlety  to  produce  an 
actual  atmosphere  of  certain  imagined  scenes  or 
places.  Such  music  is  very  delightful,  it  is  very 
wonderful,  but  the  sensation  of  it  is  almost  purely 
physical  ;  it  seems  to  lead  nowhere  in  particular, 
and  to  be  a  wonderful  and  beautiful  decadence 
rather  than  an  advance. 

These,  then,  are  the  three  chief  mediums  in 
which  music  of  the  essentially  modern  school  is 
written,  but  whichever  of  them  the  composer 
chooses,  there  is  one  thing  which  he  must  never 
lose  sight  of  if  he  wishes  his  message  to  be  really 
uttered.  He  should  say  to  himself  before  he  wTites 
one  note:  ^'Here  are  assembled  a  number  of 
artists  who  have  given  years  of  their  lives  and 
spent  all  the  labour  and  money  they  can  afford 
on  perfecting  themselves  in  their  art,  whether  of 
voice  or  of  instrument;  many  of  them  are  consum- 
mate artists  and  masters  in  their  own  department. 
I  am  about  to  ask  them  to  use  that  art  and  skill 
of  theirs  in  playing  my  music,  in  representing  my 
ideas.  Am  I  certain,  first  of  all,  that  what  I  am 
asking  them  to  perform  is  worthy  of  the  time 
and  study  they  have  spent  in  becoming  per- 
fect? And,  if  so,  have  I  spared  any  pains  to 
make  the  technical  expression  of  it  as  exact  as 
H  [    113   ] 


THE  COMPOSER 

possible?  If  not,  how  can  I  conscientiously  ask 
them  to  use  their  great  talents  in  producing  my 
imperfect  work  ?  "  That  is  a  question  which  every 
composer  owes  it  to  himself,  and  to  every  per- 
former who  is  to  interpret  his  work,  to  put  to 
himself  most  seriously ;  for  nowadays  slipshod 
workmanship  in  any  branch  of  art  is  utterly  inex- 
cusable. Technical  perfection,  as  I  have  said,  is 
one  of  the  characteristics  of  our  time,  and  its 
effect  should  be,  not  to  excuse  spiritual  or  crea- 
tive imperfection,  but  rather  to  demand  that  the 
excellence  of  the  thing  done  shall  not  fall  short 
of  the  method  of  doing  it. 

The  perfect  music  of  the  past  has  produced  the 
perfect  technique  of  the  present.  We  must  strive, 
and  at  any  rate  hope,  that  the  perfect  technique 
of  the  present  will  produce  the  perfect  music 
of  the  future. 


[    »>4    1 


THE   MUSICIAN  AS 
INTERPRETER 


THE  MUSICIAN  AS 
INTERPRETER 


MUSIC  as  it  is  imagined  and  invented 
in  the  composer's  brain  cannot  reach 
directly  to  his  audience.  There  must 
be  a  human  channel,  a  middle  party  who  receives 
the  composer's  idea  and  transmits  it,  through  his 
or  her  personality,  to  the  listener.  This  is  a  fact 
of  the  greatest  importance  to  the  position  of 
music  among  other  fine  arts  ;  it  ensures  for  music 
that  quality,  at  once  most  intimate  and  most 
human,  that  makes  it  like  nothing  else  in  the 
world.  And  this  human  interpretation  of  music 
falls  naturally  into  three  divisions,  and  is  dis- 
tributed among  three  principal  groups  of  per- 
formers. There  is  the  singer,  who  uses  his  natural 
vocal  gift  to  express  the  ideas  of  the  composer  ; 
there  is  the  player  of  instruments,  who  acquires 
a  technique  which  gives  him  the  control  of  sounds 
mechanically    produced,    by    which    further    ex- 

[    "7   ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

pression  is  given  to  the  composer's  ideas  ;  and 
there  is  the  conductor,  who  interposes  his  own 
personaHty  between  the  composer  and  the  per- 
formers, thus  adding  a  fourth  Hnk  in  the  chain 
between  inventor  and  hearer ;  it  is  he,  who, 
when  the  ideas  of  the  composer  are  complex 
and  need  complex  expression,  gathers  them  into 
his  own  mind  and  transmits  to  each  individual 
performer  the  composer's  intention  with  regard 
to  his  particular  part.  We  will  deal  with  these 
three  groups  in  their  order. 

The  singer  is  the  most  primitive  of  the 
interpreters  of  music.  As  we  saw,  he  comes 
even  before  the  composer,  for  it  was  in  order  to 
find  varied  expression  for  his  natural  gift  that  the 
idea  of  musical  invention  or  composition  must 
originally  have  arisen.  The  singer  needs  no 
instrument  or  apparatus  other  than  that  with 
which  nature  has  provided  him,  and  according  to 
the  quality  of  these  vocal  organs  the  expression 
of  the  singer  is  limited  or  varied,  ugly  or  beauti- 
ful. If  human  beings  were  bred  deliberately,  as 
race-horses  and  other  animals  are  bred,  we  could 
no  doubt  by  this  time  have  produced  a  strain  of 
people  in  which  the  vocal  organs  would  be  so 
developed  as  to  have  possibilities  at  present  un- 
dreamed of.   One  has  only  to  look  at  the  German 

[    ii8    ] 


AS  INTERPRETER 

canary  as  an  example  of  this.  The  canary  in  its 
natural  form  was  a  dull  orrcenish  bird,  rather 
smaller  than  the  common  sparrow,  and  with  very 
little  more  natural  song  than  the  sparrow  has  ; 
but  by  continual  breeding  and  selection  we  can 
at  will  produce  canaries  of  markedly  different 
shape,  size,  and  plumage  ;  and,  in  the  case  of  the 
German  canary,  which  has  been  bred  solely  with 
a  view  to  its  song,  a  creature  whose  vocal  powers 
are  nothing"  less  than  astoundino-.  When  we 
consider  the  smallness  and  frailtv  of  the  bird, 
and  the  depth  and  quality  and  range,  as  well  as 
sometimes  the  ear-splitting  volume  of  its  song, 
it  seems  little  short  of  miraculous.  But  although 
we  have  had  a  certain  amount  of  natural  develop- 
ment in  the  case  of  families  which  have  continued 
to  cultivate  one  occupation  throughout  several 
generations,  we  do  not  as  yet  deliberately  breed 
human  beings  for  any  definite  purpose — what 
we  call  '^  nature  "  is  left  to  herself. 

There  are  other  ways,  however,  in  which  we 
may  cultivate  our  human  gifts  and  faculties — by 
study,  exercise,  and  practice.  When  we  find 
a  natural  musical  gift  we  try  tluis  to  cultivate  it, 
with  the  result  that  some  voices  are  a  great  deal 
better  and  more  suited  to  the  composer's  purpose 
than  others  ;  but  we  nearly  always  find   that  the 

[    "9    ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

degree  of  really  deep  musical  cultivation  is  in  an 
inverse  ratio  to  the  amount  of  natural  vocal 
faculty.  Let  me  take  as  an  example  the  voices 
of  two  very  well-known  performers — the  voices 
of  Madame  Melba  and  Mr.  George  Henschel. 
In  Melba  you  have  what  may  be  described  as 
a  perfect  human  voice  and  a  perfect  method  of 
producing  vocal  sounds,  so  that  to  hear  a  single 
note  or  a  trill  of  Melba's  voice  is  to  receive  an 
exquisite  pleasure  of  the  senses.  But  the  musician 
who  listens  to  her  learns  that  his  pleasure  often 
stops  at  that  point;  that  the  voice  does  not  always 
mean  all  it  seems  to  mean  ;  that  the  singer  appears 
not  to  feel  or  understand  all  the  depths  of  the 
composer's  feeling  and  meaning  ;  that  although 
the  voice  is  perfect  and  perfectly  cultivated,  the 
musical  understanding  is  less  perfect.  In  the 
case  of  Henschel  you  have  the  opposite  state  of 
affairs — a  voice  the  quality  of  which  is  to  many 
ears  positively  disagreeable,  and  the  utterance  of 
which  may  produce  no  sensuous  pleasure  what- 
ever, but  which  is  so  cultivated,  which  is  used  as  the 
expression  of  a  musical  personality  so  profoundly 
artistic  and  so  masterly  in  its  realisation  of  the 
composer's  finest  meaning,  that  one  receives 
a  pleasure  of  a  much  higher  order,  and  quite 
different  from  the   pleasure  of  the  senses.    The 

[     I20    ] 


AS  INTERPRETER 

ideal,  of  course,  is  the  combination  of  the  two, 
a  voice  as  lovely  and  unearthly  as  that  of 
Madame  Melba,  allied  to  a  musical  sensibility  as 
delicate  and  masterly  as  that  of  Henschel  ;  but 
it  is  an  ideal  very  seldom  realised. 

But  every  one  has  a  voice,  and  every  one  can  sing 
even  a  little,  with  the  result  that  every  one,  how- 
ever unmusical  he  may  be,  can  understand  singing 
and  experience  a  direct  appeal  from  it ;  and  there- 
fore song  is  at  once  the  simplest,  the  most  popular, 
and,  in  some  ways,  the  most  perfect  form  of 
musical  art.  It  has  developed  almost  exclusively 
on  two  lines — the  folk-song  or  natural  music  of  a 
people,  simple  and  traditional,  sung  by  every  one, 
and  expressing  all  national  characteristics ;  and  the 
composed  song,  narrative  or  dramatic,  which 
began  with  the  ballad,  and  developed  right  on  to 
the  opera.  Perhaps  the  most  perfect  form  of  song 
hitherto  produced  has  been  the  German  //cd  as  it 
was  developed  by  Schubert  and  Schumann  ;  it  is 
a  combination  of  folk-music  and  invented  music  ; 
and  in  its  length  and  proportion,  its  power  of 
giving  perfect  expression  in  a  few  bars  to  a  com- 
plete musical  idea,  and  yet  remaining  truly  lyrical, 
this  form  of  musical  art  has  never  been  surpassed. 
The  interpreter  here  must  not  only  have  a  voice  to 
sing   with,    but   a   genuine   community   with    the 

^      [      121      J 


THE  MUSICIAN 

romantic  spirit  that  inspired  those  compositions, 
so  that  their  performance  is  a  test  not  so  much  of 
vocal  technique  on  the  part  of  the  interpreter  as 
of  genuine  musical  feeling  and  understanding. 


II 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  second  group  of  inter- 
preters— the  players  of  musical  instruments — and 
consider  for  a  moment  their  qualifications  and 
opportunities.  In  this  case,  odd  as  it  may  appear, 
no  natural  gift  is  absolutely  essential,  except  the 
one  gift  which  is  necessary  to  all  interpreters  in 
common — the  gift  of  what  we  call  an  accurate 
musical  ear.  I  call  this  a  gift  because  it  appears 
so  to  us  to-day  ;  we  have  people  who  cannot  dis- 
tineuish  one  note  from  another,  and  we  have  other 
people  with  an  ear  so  sensitive  that  they  can  tell 
the  pitch  of  any  note  sung  in  any  environment, 
and  in  relation  to  any  other  note.  But  I  doubt  very 
much  whether  this  condition  of  the  auditory  senses 
ought  to  be  regarded  as  abnormal.  It  seems  to  me 
that  what  we  call  a  perfect  ear  for  music  is  only  the 
auditory  sense  in  a  perfectly  healthy  state,  and 
that  the  majority  of  people  who  have  not  got  it  are 
to  that  extent  diseased.    Among  the  Hungarians, 

[      122      ] 


AS  INTERPRETER 

for  example,  what  is  exceptional  with  us  is 
commonplace  ;  it  is  the  exception  for  a  Hungarian 
peasant  not  to  have  what  we  should  describe  as  a 
perfect  ear  for  music.  So  that  I  cannot  regard  this 
as  a  particular  gift  or  endowment  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  the  word,  and  to  that  extent  I  feel  justified 
in  saying  that  the  player  of  an  instrument  has  no 
need  for  any  particular  endowment.  It  is  with 
him  almost  purely  a  matter  of  training,  but  it  is 
training  of  a  very  elaborate  and  arduous  kind, 
combining  physical  dexterity  with  a  curious 
mental  process  for  which  we  have  no  name,  but 
which  consists  in  an  absolute  correlation  of  the 
hand  and  the  eye,  a  faculty  which  is  found  at  its 
highest  development  in  jugglers  or  conjurers,  and 
in  pianists. 

For  what  has  to  be  done  in  the  case  of  the  in- 
terpreter of  music  who  plays  an  instrument  is  that 
he  or  she,  reading  from  the  printed  page  a  series 
of  symbols  representing  musical  sounds,  must 
instantly  translate  those  symbols  into  muscular 
movements  of  the  fingers,  which  are  not  only  com- 
bined, but  which  follow  each  other  with  extreme 
rapidity,  and  with  an  extraordinary  complexity  of 
variation.  The  production  of  sound  in  musical 
instruments  being  mechanical,  the  composer  can 
himself  control   the   interpretation    to   a    sliglitly 

[    123   ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

greater  extent  than  in  the  case  of  vocal  performers  ; 
for  when  he  has  indicated  that  a  certain  note  has 
to  be  struck  and  held  for  a  certain  time,  and  when 
by  marks  and  directions  he  has  determined,  not 
only  the  length  of  the  note,  but  the  degree  of  force 
with  which  it  shall  be  struck  and  even  the  method 
of  laying  the  finger  upon  it — or,  in  the  case  of 
music  for  the  violin,  when  he  has  directed  which 
string  is  to  be  played,  the  weight  with  which  the 
bow  has  to  be  pressed  upon  it,  the  position  of 
the  bow  on  the  string,  near  to  or  distant  from  the 
bridge,  and  the  direction  of  the  bow  whether 
upward  or  downward — when  the  composer  has 
done  all  this,  although  he  still  leaves  a  great  deal 
in  the  power  of  the  performer,  absence  of  musical 
feeling  or  of  sympathy  with  him  on  the  part  of 
the  performer  will  probably  not  work  such  havoc 
as  it  would  in  the  case  of  the  singer. 

From  this  has  probably  resulted  the  immense 
variety  in  the  merits  of  instrumental  interpreters 
of  music,  and  from  this  also  arose  an  evil  which 
happily  we  are  getting  away  from  now,  which  went 
far  to  damage  the  musical  sense  of  the  middle 
classes  in  this  country  during  three  parts  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  I  refer  to  the  absence  of  any 
recognised  standard  of  ability,  which  made  it 
possible  for  people  to  play  and  sing  in  public  who 

[    124   ] 


AS  INTERPRETER 

had  no  right  to  do  so,  and  whose  doing  so  was  for 
sensitive  people  an  infliction  of  the  most  dreadful 
kind.  Who  has  forgotten,  or  can  ever  forget,  the 
intolerable  agonies  of  the  evening  party  of  twenty 
years  ago  ? — when  some  hapless  young  woman 
would  go  to  the  piano,  and  there  commit  a  de- 
liberate and  hideous  murder  on  the  spiritual  idea 
of  some  great  mind — a  murder  as  revolting  in  its 
details  as  many  of  those  merely  physical  offences 
which  rouse  our  anger  to  such  a  degree  that  we 
hang  people  by  the  neck  for  them.  And  the 
gentleman  who  sang  bass,  and  who  perhaps  did 
not  murder  any  fine  composition,  but  who  deliber- 
ately and  wantonly  created  a  nuisance  by  inter- 
preting a  composition  which  was  not  fine,  but  in  all 
respects  base  and  absurd — we  all  remember  him 
too,  remember  him  wnth  fear  and  resentment. 

Now  how  did  this  state  of  things  come  about? 
In  this  connection  the  psychology  of  that  evening 
party  which  we  would  otherwise  so  gladly  forget 
•is  worth  a  moment's  consideration.  This  dread- 
fully low  standard,  or  rather  absence  of  standard, 
this  lack  of  shame  which  permitted  people  to 
attempt  to  do  what  they  were  totally  unable  to  do, 
had  its  origin  in  the  very  universality  of  music. 
Not  every  one  can  paint  a  little  ;  not  every  one 
can  balance  on  his  chin  a  pole  up  which  his  wife 

[     '25     ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

and  two  children  have  dimbed  ;  no  one  pretends  to 
be  able  to  do  these  things  who  has  not  seriously- 
practised  the  art  of  doing  them  ;  and  therefore  you 
do  not,  in  fact,  find  people  seriously  inviting  you  to 
watch  them  balance  a  pole  on  their  chins  who 
have  not  the  faintest  idea  how  to  set  about  it.  But 
every  one,  as  I  said,  has  a  voice,  and  is  capable  of 
uttering  a  song  of  some  kind  ;  and  as  the  musical 
faculty  is  in  the  minds  of  some  people  confounded 
with  the  mere  ability  of  uttering  sounds,  you  get 
people  uttering  sounds,  or  causing  instruments  to 
produce  them,  under  the  impression  that  what  they 
are  doing  has  some  relation  to  music.  There  is 
thus  no  absolute  standard,  no  sharp  line  dividing 
those  who  have  a  musical  sense  from  those  who 
have  none.  That  unhappy  expression  ^*  musical  " 
has  indeed  much  to  answer  for. 

**Are  you  musical?"  asks  Mr.  A.  of  Miss  B. 

*^  No,"  says  Miss  B.     '^  I  don't  know  one  note 
from  another  ;  but  my  sister.  Miss  C,  is  musical." 

^^  Do  you  like  music  ?  "  asks  Mr.  A. 

^^  I  tell  you  I  don't  know  anything  about  it," 
says  Miss  B.,  ^'but  I  know  what  I  like." 

**  Do  you  like  the  piano  ?  "  says  Mr.  A. 

''  Not  much,"  says  Miss  B. 

Mr.  A.  thereupon  passes  over  to  Miss  C,  and 
says  : 

[    126   ] 


AS  INTERVRETER 

''  I  hear  you  are  very  musical." 

**Oh  yes,  I  adore  it,"  says  Miss  C. 

^^  I  hear  you  play  the  piano,"  says  Mr.  A. 

^^  Well,  I  do  a  little,"  says  Miss  C. 

*^  Do  play  us  something,"  says  Mr.  A. 

^'Oh  !  I  couldn't  really,"  says  Miss  C. 

^*  But  do  play  something,"  says  Mr.  A. 

*^  But  I  am  so  out  of  practice,"  says  Miss  C. 

^^  Never  mind,  play  anything,"  says  Mr.  A. 
desperately. 

^*Oh!  I  didn't  know  there  was  going  to  be 
music,"  says  Miss  C. 

''  Have  you  brought  your  music  ?  "  says  Mr.  A. 

^^Yes,"  says  Miss  C.  ^Mt  is  in  the  ^hall,'  I 
think." 

Whereupon,  after  much  fuss  and  feigned  reluct- 
ance on  the  part  of  Miss  C,  the  music  is  brought, 
the  plants  and  photograph  frames  pushed  a  little 
way  back  from  the  piano,  and  the  sacrifice  pre- 
pared. 

*^  I  am  afraid  the  piano  is  rather  out  of  tune," 
says  Mrs.  A. 

^*Oh  !  it  doesn't  matter,"  says  Miss  C. 

Indeed  it  does  not.  Miss  C.  sits  down,  and 
coldly  and  wickedly  perpetrates  what  is  a  very 
monstrous  affront,  not  only  to  the  ears,  but  to  the 
intelligence  of  every  normal  person  present.     No 

[    127   ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

one  enjoys  it,  except  Miss  C.  and  her  mother,  who 
is  totally  without  the  musical  instinct,  and  who 
fatuously  regards  this  feat  of  her  offspring-  as  a 
species  of  public  triumph.  No  one  else  really 
likes  it.  Many  of  the  people  present  are  people  of 
genuine  common  sense  and  sound  understanding, 
but  a  kind  of  charm  hangs  over  them,  the  charm 
of  the  so-called  Musical  Evening.  They  are  there 
to  play  or  sing,  or  to  be  played  at  or  sung  at.  It 
is  considered  polite  to  ask  people  to  do  this,  even 
if  they  are  incapable  of  it,  and,  astounding  fact !  to 
press  those  to  do  so  who  show  an  inkling  of  shame 
or  reluctance.  Meanwhile  Miss  B.  sits  apart  in  her 
corner,  genuinely  disenjoying  herself,  and  under 
the  impression  that  it  is  because  she  is  not  musical. 
She  is,  in  fact,  the  only  musical  person  in  the  room, 
and  has  a  sensitive  ear  which  is  daily  tortured  by 
what  she  is  taught  to  regard  as  music. 

*^  What  a  pity  you  are  not  musical,"  says  Mr.  A., 
**but  then,  of  course,  you  paint" — which  indeed 
the  poor  girl  does,  very  badly,  having  an  exquisite 
ear  for  sound  and  no  sense  of  colour  at  all  ;  but 
her  mother  had  made  up  her  mind,  before  she  was 
married,  that  her  eldest  daughter  should  paint  and 
her  youngest  daughter  play  the  piano  ;  hence  the 
evening  party. 

Happily  that  state  of  things  is  passing  from  us, 

[    128  ] 


AS  INTERPRETER 

if  not  already  past.  It  is  no  longer  deemed  a 
compliment  by  intelligent  people  to  ask  their 
guests  on  the  one  hand  to  exhibit  their  inca- 
pacity, or  on  the  other  to  endure  acute  suffering 
under  the  name  of  music.  It  was  an  inevitable 
state  in  our  musical  progress,  brought  about  by 
the  spread  of  education,  and  the  improvements  in 
the  manufacture  of  pianos,  and  the  cultivation  of 
that  mid-Victorian  ideal  of  home-life  which  has  so 
much  to  answer  for  in  our  lives,  both  good  and 
bad.  We  are  indeed  going  to  the  other  extreme. 
The  technique  of  playing  has  been  studied  to 
such  an  extent,  and  scientific  methods  cultivated 
of  producing  the  necessary  muscular  strength 
and  freedom  of  action  in  the  finger-joints,  that 
the  technical  standard  of  performance  has  risen 
very  rapidly.  By  the  methods  of  such  a  master 
as  Leschetitzky,  it  is  possible  for  a  frail  young 
girl  of  quite  feeble  physique  to  acquire  in  a  few 
years  the  technique  of  a  virtuoso  and  a  mechanical 
power  of  control  which  would  have  made  many  a 
virtuoso  of  the  nineteenth  century  envious.  The 
result  has  been  that  what  we  may  call  the 
"parlour  performer"  has  not  a  chance  in  com- 
petition with  her  professionally  trained  friend. 
The  increase  of  music-schools  and  conservatoires 
has  placed  this  professional  training  within  the 
I  [    129   ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

reach  of  almost  any  youth  or  girl  with  decided 
musical  tastes.  People,  in  short,  are  accustomed 
to  hear  competent  performers,  and  are  learning 
not  to  tolerate  the  incompetent. 

But  here  again,  in  spite  of  such  a  manifest  and 
obvious  improvement  in  musical  conditions,  we 
are  confronted  with  the  inevitable  drawback. 
With  the  great  advance  in  technique,  excellence 
is  not  always  associated  with  a  corresponding 
advance  in  musical  feeling  or  understanding. 
There  is  a  great  danger  that  people  may  come  to 
care  more  for  performances  than  for  the  thing 
performed.  Not  what  is  done,  but  how  it  is  done, 
seems  to  be  the  chief  question  with  modern 
audiences.  Now,  extremely  important  as  the 
manner  of  a  thing  is,  I  cannot  admit  that  it  is 
quite  so  important  as  the  matter.  It  is  right  that 
we  should  hear  music  as  perfectly  performed  as 
possible,  but  it  is  also  right  that  we  should  con- 
sider what  it  is  that  is  being  performed.  The 
interpretation  is  not  everything,  and  the  inter- 
preter in  music  is  not  the  highest  order  of 
musician.  It  is  very  necessary,  whenever  we 
listen  to  a  musical  performance,  to  make  this 
distinction  to  ourselves  between  the  performance 
as  a  performance  and  as  an  opportunity  of 
hearing  a  work  of  art.  We  all  know  what  it  is  to 

[    130  ] 


^J'  INTER'PRETER 

hear  perfect  performances  that  leave  us  absolutely 
cold,  and  to  hear  other  performances  that  are  far 
from  perfect,  and  which  have  yet  succeeded  in 
conveying"  to  us  an  absolute  and  unforgettable 
interpretation  of  the  music  performed. 

So  that  we  must  make  another  distinction,  and 
say  that  a  perfect  performance  is  not  necessarily 
a  perfect  interpretation.  If  you  go  to  the  opera 
in  London,  Paris,  or  New  York,  you  will  hear 
the  most  famous  vocal  artists  in  the  world  sing 
some  of  the  most  famous  music.  But  it  is  very 
rarely  that  you  hear  there  a  really  perfect 
interpretation.  People  do  not  go  there  to  hear 
the  music,  but  the  performers  ;  they  do  not  go  to 
hear  Tristan  or  Traviata,  but  to  hear  Caruso  in 
Tristan  and  Melba  in  Traviata.  That  merely 
means  that  the  personality  of  the  interpreter, 
instead  of  beinof  a  conductinof  link  between 
composer  and  listener,  is  obtruded  as  a  barrier 
or  screen  between  them.  It  was,  as  we  know, 
one  of  Wagner's  great  missions  to  do  away  with 
that  inartistic  state  of  affairs,  to  banish  the  prima 
donna  from  the  entirely  false  place  which  she  had 
acquired.  And  though  his  influence  was  great, 
it  has  only  succeeded  in  the  case  of  his  own 
works,  and  only  partially  in  them  ;  it  is  very  hard 
indeed  to  get  an  opera  performance  in  which  the 

[    131    ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

singers  are  content  to  be  impersonal  and  to 
devote  their  talents,  not  to  the  glorification  of 
themselves,  but  to  the  true  interpretation  of 
the  work  in  hand.  Yet  this  undoubtedly  is 
at  once  a  duty  and  a  great  opportunity  of  the 
musician  as  interpreter — to  lay  his  powers  and 
his  talents  at  the  feet  of  the  composer,  and  devote 
them  solely  to  the  perfect  interpretation  of  his 
music.  And  I  need  not  say  that  where  that  is 
the  interpreter's  sole  idea,  only  the  worthiest 
music  is  likely  to  be  performed  ;  for  whereas  any 
rubbish  may  serve  to  show  off  a  voice  or  a  talent, 
it  will  only  be  to  the  finest  and  greatest  music 
that  a  true  artist  will  be  content  to  surrender  his 
personality. 

In  the  career  of  every  artist  there  comes  a 
supreme  moment  when  he  or  she  must  choose 
between  two  services — the  service  of  art  or  the 
service  of  self.  While  the  artist  is  actually 
studying  and  qualifying,  this  choice  is  hardly 
offered  ;  he  is  all  artist  then,  because  he  is  learn- 
ing and  trying  to  grasp  and  achieve  a  command 
of  his  art  ;  the  artist  is  always  a  learner,  and  the 
true  learner  is  in  some  degree  an  artist.  But 
with  achievement  and  mastery  come  recogni- 
tion and  applause,  come  opportunity  and  power. 
The    artist    has    become   a    master,     a    teacher, 

[    132   ] 


AS  INTERPRETER 

endowed  with  that  subtle  quaHty  that  lays  the 
world  at  his  bidding  ;  when  he  may  either  make 
his  followers  glorify  him  or  glorify  his  art.  The 
choice  is  between  serving  his  art  or  making  it 
serve  him.  For  the  artist  who  remains  true  there 
can  be  no  choice  ;  he  must  go  on  serving  and 
learning.  I  have  very  vividly  in  my  mind  a 
performance  which  I  recently  heard  in  London 
by  one  of  the  very  greatest  singers  of  the  day.  It  is 
many  years  now  since  this  singer  reached  the 
cross-roads  at  which  the  choice,  to  which  I  have 
referred,  was  offered  to  her  ;  and  I  am  afraid  that 
since  then  she  has  learnt  nothing  more  of  music, 
and  has  bound  her  art  in  golden  chains  to  the 
service  of  herself.  At  the  concert  of  which  I  am 
speaking  this  was  very  clearly  demonstrated. 
In  arias  by  Verdi  and  Donizetti,  which  were 
written  by  masters  in  the  art  of  displaying  the 
voice,  her  performance  left  nothing  to  be  wished 
for  ;  Verdi  and  Donizetti  knew  their  business  too 
well.  But  in  a  song-cycle  by  a  modern  com- 
poser, a  work  demanding  far  higher  artistic 
qualities  in  its  rendering  than  these,  because 
vocally  inferior  to  them,  the  singer  showed  very 
clearly  her  conception  of  the  relations  between 
singer  and  composer.  The  point  for  the  moment 
has  nothing  to  do   with   the   merit   of  the   com- 

[    133   ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

position.  It  was  deemed  worthy  by  the  per- 
former to  be  sung  before  some  thousands  of 
people  who  had  paid  a  great  deal  of  money  for 
their  seats  ;  and  in  such  circumstances  there  is 
only  one  thing  for  the  artist  to  do  if  she  has  any 
respect  for  herself,  her  audience,  the  composer, 
or  the  art  of  music — to  spare  no  effort  or  inquiry 
or  pains  to  bring  out  every  fragment  of  meaning 
and  beauty  that  there  may  be  in  the  composition. 
What  happened  was  that  the  great  artist  sang 
these  four  little  songs  in  a  way  that,  if  I  had  been 
the  composer,  would  have  made  me  turn  hot 
and  cold  alternately.  It  was  not  only  that  the 
ideas  which  the  composer  had  attempted  to 
express  were  apparently  unsympathetic  to  the 
singer,  and  that  she  had  not  a  clear  conception 
of  how  these  four  little  songs  should  be  sung  ;  it 
was  that  she  made  no  attempt  to  disguise  her 
complete  lack  of  interest  in  such  passages  (and 
they  were  many)  that  did  not  lend  themselves  to 
the  display  of  her  voice.  It  was  so  obvious  that 
these  little  songs  were  beneath  her  contempt ; 
the  passages  in  which  the  lyrical  expression  was 
given  to  the  accompaniment  instead  of  to  the 
voice  were  so  hurried  and  slurred  over  in 
the  main  business  of  getting  to  the  high  note  or 
the  beautiful   winging  cadences  of  tone  that  are 

[  134] 


AS  INTERPRETER 

this  singer's  secret,  the  poor  composer's  secret 
(supposing-  him  to  have  had  one)  remained  untold. 
Now  if  these  songs  were  bad  songs,  or  not 
worth  the  singer's  trouble  to  sing  as  well  as  she 
was  able,  their  appearance  on  her  programme 
was  wholly  inexcusable  ;  if  they  were  good  songs 
or  deemed  by  her  worthy  to  be  sung  to  her 
audience,  her  neglect  to  sing  them  with  respect, 
with  care,  and  with  all  the  mastery  of  which  she 
is  capable,  was  equally  inexcusable.  It  is  the 
sign  of  the  true  artist  that  he  glorifies  everything 
he  touches  and  puts  new  meaning  and  new  life 
into  the  meaning  and  life  around  him  ;  that  he 
takes  a  small  thing  and  transmutes  it  by  his  art 
into  a  great  thing.  But  this  singer,  apparently 
finding  no  meaning  in  these  songs,  had  no 
meaning  of  her  own  to  bring  to  them  ;  and  if  she 
found  them  a  small  thing  she  certainly  made 
them  no  greater,  since  they  issued  from  her 
magic  throat  a  considerably  smaller  thing  than 
when  they  left  the  composer's  brain.  And  that 
is  what  I  mean  when  I  say  that  the  artist  wlio 
tries  to  interpret  music  must  distinguish  between 
interpretation  and  mere  performance. 


[    135   ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 


III 

We  will  now  consider  the  third  and  most  com- 
plex of  the  methods  of  interpreting  music — the  art 
of  conducting.  The  psychology  and  technique  of 
this  art  are  discussed  in  a  later  chapter  ;  here  we 
shall  merely  consider  the  conductor  as  the  inter- 
preting link  between  composer  and  audience. 
Conducting,  as  we  know  it  and  as  it  is  understood 
to-day,  is  an  entirely  modern  art,  dating  no  farther 
back  than  Wagner.  He  may  be  said  indeed  to 
be  the  inventor  of  it.  Berlioz,  his  contemporary, 
shared  the  pioneer  work  with  him,  although  they 
worked  on  different  lines  and  in  a  mistrustful  in- 
dependence of  one  another.  But  it  was  Wagner 
who  first  insisted  in  any  large  way  on  a  training 
and  discipline  of  the  orchestra  which  would  ensure 
to  the  conductor  the  absolute  control  of  every  note 
sounded,  and  it  was  Wagner  who  sent  out  into  the 
world  that  band  of  apostles  who  devoted  their  lives 
entirely  to  this  one  art,  and  spread  its  methods  and 
technique  throughout  the  world  of  music.  With 
the  exception  of  Liszt  and  Von  Btilow,  who  w^ere 
also  pianists,  these  musicians  were  conductors  pure 
and  simple  ;  they  were  the  first  who  raised  con- 
ducting to  the  level  of  a  separate  art,  and  they  were 

[    136  ] 


AS  INTERPRETER 

the  first  great  virtuosi  in  conducting.  Such  a  thing 
had  been  hitherto  unheard  of.  The  old  Kapel- 
meister,  who  simply  beat  time  with  a  roll  of  music 
or  a  violin  bow,  had  really  no  more  in  common  with 
them  than  had  the  old  piihator  oi'gamini^  who  beat 
with  his  fists  broad  organ  notes  which  by  heavy 
mechanism  admitted  wind  to  a  few  pipes,  with  a 
Kendrick  Pyne  or  an  Alexandre  Guilmant.  As 
with  the  organ  throughout  several  centuries  of 
evolution,  so  within  a  space  of  only  fifty  years  has 
the  whole  technique  of  conducting  been  revolu- 
tionised. And  the  modern  frail  wand  of  hickory, 
which  sometimes  hardly  moves  in  the  conductor's 
hand,  is  not  more  different  from  the  old  roll  of 
music,  or  the  later  pot-stick  which  was  wielded 
from  side  to  side  by  movements  of  the  conductor's 
whole  arm,  than  is  the  sensitiveness  of  modern 
orchestral  players  different  from  the  phlegmatic 
stolidity  of  their  predecessors.  It  may  surprise 
some  of  us  to  know  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
technique  in  conducting  ;  it  looks  so  very  simple 
to  stand  in  front  of  an  orchestra  and  beat  time 
with  the  music  ;  but  that  is  not  what  is  done  by  the 
modern  conductor.  He  has  to  acquire  a  very 
elaborate  technique.  He  must  have  the  wrist 
action  of  a  violinist  ;  for  if  you  watch  born  con- 
ductors with  such  perfect  technique  as  Nikisch  or 

[    137   ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

Henry  Wood,  or,  among  the  younger  school, 
Landon  Ronald,  you  will  notice  that  their  move- 
ments, although  quiet  and  unobtrusive  to  the 
audience,  are  as  varied  and  as  expressive  to  the 
orchestra  as  the  music  which  they  are  conducting, 
Henry  Wood  has  perhaps  the  most  perfect  wrist 
action  of  any  conductor  who  has  ever  lived.  His 
baton  moves  as  freely  as  a  branch  swinging  in  the 
wind,  although  his  arm  may  not  be  moving  at  all  ; 
and  you  can  easily  imagine  that  the  extraordinary 
delicacy  of  control  from  wrist  and  fingers  thus  pro- 
duced when  it  is  added  to  greater  gestures  of  the 
forearm  or  of  the  whole  arm  give  a  range  of  expres- 
sive gesture  which  is  almost  infinite.  All  this  is 
quite  modern,  quite  a  new  thing,  and  it  means  that 
the  conductor  is  doing  far  more  than  giving  the 
time  to  the  orchestra  ;  he  is  giving  by  these  very 
gestures  not  only  the  time  but  the  nuances  of  ex- 
pression, and,  more  subtly  still,  transmitting  his 
own  emotional  sense  of  the  music  to  every  member 
of  the  orchestra,  so  that,  in  a  sense,  and  through 
the  sensitive  human  medium  of  the  players,  the 
conductor  is  himself  playing  every  instrument. 

It  will  be  realised  at  once  what  a  very  great 
revolution  a  new  art  like  this  is  bound  to  effect 
in  music.  It  has  for  one  thing  revolutionised 
the  art  of  writing  for  the  orchestra,  and  greatly 

•      [    138   ] 


AS  INTERPRETER 

developed  the  technique  of  orchestral  players  ;  so 
that  whereas  in  the  old  works  on  orchestration 
g'reat  numbers  of  notes  and  sequences  of  notes  were 
marked  as  *^  unplayable  "  for  this  instrument  or 
that,  there  is  practically  nothing  now  that  is  un- 
playable on  any  instrument.  In  a  first-rate  modern 
orchestra  every  player  is  a  vij-tuosoy  and  the  in- 
struments themselves  have  been  so  enormously 
improved  that  passages  can  now  be  written  which 
would  have  been  laughed  at  fifty  years  ago  as  un- 
playable. Here,  again,  the  modern  composer's  re- 
sources have  been  infinitely  extended  ;  for  formerly 
any  work  of  a  florid  nature,  any  rapid  passage 
work,  and  free  and  elaborate  melodic  movement, 
was  confined  to  the  strings,  the  other  instruments 
being  merely  used  to  fill  in  the  harmony  or  support 
the  rhythm  ;  now  the  same  passage  work  can  be 
entrusted  equally  well  to  the  wood-wind  and  even 
to  the  brass. 

Well,  all  this  complex  machinery  is  controlled 
by  the  conductor  in  the  interests  of  the  composer. 
He  is  the  only  interpreter  of  music  whose  business 
it  is  to  be  absolutely  silent  ;  in  silence  he  receives 
the  idea  of  the  music  from  the  composer's  score, 
and  in  silence  transmits  it  to  the  company  before 
him,  who  bring  it  to  its  birth  of  sound.  And  the 
equipment  which  fits  him  for  this  task  is  no  simple 

[    139   ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

one.  He  must  have  all  the  composer's  knowledge 
of  the  different  instruments  ;  in  fact,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  creative  genius,  he  must  have  all  the 
composer's  technical  equipment ;  and  in  addition 
he  must  have  certain  qualities  of  personality  which 
fit  him  to  control  and  co-ordinate  so  various  and 
difficult  a  body  as  is  represented  by  a  hundred 
extremely  sensitive  and  able  musicians.  It  is  not 
enough  for  him  to  know  how  the  piece  of  music 
ought  to  be  interpreted  ;  he  must  be  able  to  trans- 
mit the  knowledge  to  his  orchestra,  to  convince 
them  that  there  is  only  one  way  in  which  that  music 
must  be  played,  and  that  is  his  way.  Before  he 
comes  to  his  desk  with  a  modern  score  he  must 
have  spent  hours  and  hours  in  private  reading  and 
study  of  it,  as  a  pianist  would  practise  a  piece 
or  an  actor  con  his  part ;  and  he  must  lead  his 
orchestra  from  the  first  stages  of  unfamiliarity 
to  a  perfect  comprehension  of  his  meaning  with 
regard  to  the  music,  and  finally  present  through 
them  to  his  audience  a  perfect  interpretation  of 
the  composer's  task.  No  light  task  that,  as  you 
may  imagine.  As  Berlioz  has  said :  ^^  He  should 
feel,  comprehend,  and  be  moved,  and  the  per- 
formers should  feel  that  he  feels,  comprehends, 
and  is  moved  :  then  his  emotion  communicates 
itself  to  those  whom  he  directs,   his  inward  fire 

[    140  ] 


AS  INTERPRETER 

warms  them,  his  electric  glow  animates  them,  his 
force  of  impulse  excites  them  ;  he  throws  around 
him  the  vital  irradiations  of  musical  art.  If  he  be 
inert  and  frozen,  on  the  contrary,  he  paralyses  all 
about  him,  like  those  floating  masses  of  the  polar 
seas,  the  approach  of  which  is  perceived  through 
the  sudden  cooling  of  the  atmosphere. 

*^Of  the  three  intermediate  agents  between  the 
composer  and  his  audience,  singers  have  often 
been  accused  of  forming  the  most  dangerous  ;  but, 
in  my  opinion,  without  justice.  The  most  formid- 
able, to  my  thinking,  is  the  conductor  of  the 
orchestra.  A  bad  singer  can  spoil  only  his  own 
part  ;  while  an  incapable  or  malevolent  conductor 
ruins  all.  Happy  also  may  that  composer  esteem 
himself  when  the  conductor  into  whose  hands  he 
has  fallen  is  not  at  once  incapable  and  inimical. 
For  nothing  can  resist  the  pernicious  influence  of 
this  person.  The  most  admirable  orchestra  is  then 
paralysed,  the  most  excellent  singers  are  perplexed 
and  rendered  dull  ;  there  is  no  longer  any  vigour 
or  unity  ;  under  such  direction  the  noblest  daring 
of  the  author  appears  extravagance,  enthusiasm 
beholds  its  soaring  flight  checked,  inspiration  is 
violently  brought  down  to  earth,  the  angel's  wings 
are  broken,  the  man  of  genius  passes  for  a  mad- 
man or  an  idiot,  the  divine  statue  is  precipitated 

[    141    ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

from  its  pedestal  and  dragged  in  the  mud.  And, 
what  is  worse,  the  public,  and  even  auditors  en- 
dowed with  the  highest  musical  intelligence,  are 
reduced  to  the  impossibility  (if  a  new  work  be  in 
question,  and  they  are  hearing  it  for  the  first  time) 
of  recognising  the  ravages  perpetrated  by  the 
orchestral  conductor — of  discovering  the  follies, 
faults,  and  crimes  he  commits.  If  they  clearly  per- 
ceive certain  defects  of  execution,  not  he,  but  his 
victims,  are  in  such  cases  made  responsible.  If  he 
have  caused  the  chorus-singers  to  fail  in  taking  up 
a  point  in  2l  finale ;  if  he  have  allowed  a  discordant 
wavering  to  take  place  between  the  choir  and  the 
orchestra,  or  between  the  extreme  sides  of  the 
instrumental  body  ;  if  he  have  absurdly  hurried  a 
movement ;  if  he  have  allowed  it  to  linger  unduly, 
if  he  have  interrupted  a  singer  before  the  end  of 
a  phrase,  they  exclaim,  *  The  singers  are  detest- 
able !  The  orchestra  has  no  firmness  ;  the  violins 
have  disfigured  the  principal  design  ;  everybody 
has  been  wanting  in  vigour  and  animation  ;  the 
tenor  was  quite  out,  he  did  not  know  his  part ;  the 
harmony  is  confused  ;  the  author  is  no  accom- 
panist ;  the  voices  are '  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

*^  Except  in  listening  to  great  works  already 
knownand  esteemed,  intelligent  hearers  can  hardly 
distinguish  the  true  culprit,  and  allot  to  him  his 

[    142   ] 


AS  INTERPRETER 

due  share  of  blame  ;  but  the  number  of  these  Is 
still  so  limited  that  their  judgment  has  little  weight ; 
and  the  bad  conductor — in  presence  of  the  public 
who  would  pitilessly  hiss  a  vocal  accident  of  a 
good  singer — reigns  with  all  the  calm  of  a  bad 
conscience,  in  his  baseness  and  inefficiency." 

These  words  are  no  exaggeration  of  the  bad 
influence  exerted  by  unworthy,  insincere,  or 
incompetent  interpreters  of  music.  Happily  they 
are  becoming  rarer  every  day.  The  art  of 
musical  performance  is  one  in  which  we  can 
definitely  say  that  there  has  been  steady  progress, 
and  it  has  probably  never  reached  so  high  a  pitch 
of  excellence  as  it  has  reached  to-day.  The 
performers  have  educated  the  audience,  and  the 
audience  in  turn  have  continued  the  education 
of  the  performers  by  insisting  on  a  higher  and 
higher  standard.  Technical  perfection  may  for 
the  present  be  left  thus  automatically  to  look 
after  itself ;  what  requires  constant  criticism  and 
constant  vigilance  is  the  spirit  in  which  the 
performance  is  given.  When  you  go  to  a  con- 
cert or  an  opera  or  a  recital  there  are  two 
questions  which  you  must  ask  yourself  about 
the  performer — what  is  his  equipment  for  his 
task,  and  in  what  spirit  does  he  perform  it?  it 
has  hitherto  been  the  custom  with  most  people,  I 

[    143    ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

think,  to  put  these  two  questions  in  the  order  in 
which  I  have  given  them  ;  but  I  would  advise  my 
readers  to  reverse  the  order,  and  inquire  first  into 
the  spirit  of  the  performance,  and  afterwards  into 
its  technical  merits.  No  one  is  likely  to  come 
before  us  now  in  absolute  technical  incompetence; 
but  many  people  will  come  before  us  who  are 
spiritually  and  artistically  incompetent,  whatever 
their  technical  accomplishments  may  be.  Depend 
upon  it  we  shall  soon  be  aware,  or  ought  to  be 
aware,  if  the  spirit  in  which  the  performer  works 
is  a  true  one.  If  his  object  is  the  display  of  his  own 
talent,  or  any  other  form  of  self-glorification,  then 
I  do  not  care  what  his  technical  equipment  may 
be — we  shall  get  no  true  interpretation  of  the 
music.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  his  motive  and 
spirit  are  pure,  and  his  desire  is  to  sink  his  own 
personality  and  to  be  a  mouthpiece  by  which  the 
composer's  message  may  reach  us,  then  his  w^ork 
will  be  artistic  and,  even  if  it  falls  short  of 
technical  brilliance,  will  leave  with  us  a  definite 
impression,  and  produce  a  definite  atmosphere. 

It  is  the  business  of  the  musician,  as  inter- 
preter, not  to  pursue  fame  or  reputation  as  ends 
in  themselves,  but  to  leave  them  to  come  or  not 
as  they  will,  and  if  they  do  come,  to  come  as  the 
results  of  a  genuine  foundation  of  artistic  work 

[    144   ] 


AS  INTERPRETER 

which  he  has  laid.  We  must  leave  the  flowers 
of  things  to  bloom  of  themselves  ;  our  work  is 
among*  the  roots  and  the  soil.  In  musical 
interpretation,  as  in  everything-  else,  we  must  not 
expect  to  reap  where  we  have  not  sown.  The 
suns  and  rains  and  dews  of  heaven  will  bring 
things  to  blossom  and  fruit  and  flower  in  their 
own  time  and  order  ;  and  we  who  wish  to  be  rich 
in  these  things  must  cultivate  the  soil  in  which 
they  are  to  grow,  and  keep  it  free  from  other 
growths  that  would  drain  it  of  its  virtue.  In 
music,  as  in  all  life,  we  must  choose  first  what  we 
want,  and  then  work  for  it  ;  for  it  is  by  working, 
and  not  by  wishing,  that  men  achieve  their 
desires. 


[  145  ] 


THE  MUSICIAN  AS 
HEARER 


THE  MUSICIAN  AS 
HEARER 

LISTENING  to  music,  if  it  is  not  exactly 
an  art,  is  at  any  rate  a  thing-  which  can 
^  be  cultivated  and  enjoyed  in  a  greater  or 
less  degree  in  proportion  as  we  concentrate  and 
prepare  our  minds  for  it.  There  are  very  few 
people  who  can  enjoy  music  in  any  and  every 
frame  of  mind,  and  there  is  very  little  music  that 
can  be  enjoyed  without  a  considerable  degree  of 
attention  and  concentration.  The  concentration 
is,  or  ought  to  be,  almost  automatic,  so  that  we 
are  not  conscious  of  making  a  mental  effort  ; 
nevertheless  we  find,  as  a  general  rule,  that  our 
enjoyment  is  in  exact  proportion  to  the  degree 
w^ith  which  we  clear  our  minds  of  all  previous 
occupations,  and  address  them  singly  to  the 
music  we  are  hearing. 

This  is  true  especially  of  music  heard  in  the 
concert-room  ;  and  let  us  admit  at  once  that  the 
concert-room  is  far  from  being  an  ideal  place  for 
hearing  any  kind  of  music.  The  concert-room  is 

[    '49.  ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

a  makeshift  ;  the  earliest  music  definitely  written 
to  give  people  pleasure  was  essentially  chamber- 
music,  meant  to  be  played  in  a  room  to  a  few 
people  gathered  there  for  the  express  purpose  of 
listening  to  it.  As  more  people  wished  to  listen 
to  the  music  it  became  necessary  to  find  a  larger 
room,  and  so  on,  until  it  was  found  convenient 
to  have  a  very  large  room  or  hall  set  apart  for  the 
purpose.  And  then  the  number  of  performers  was 
increased,  and  the  size  of  the  orchestra  ;  for  the 
modern  orchestra  as  we  know  it  is  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  a  development  of  the  string  quar- 
tette. But  the  development  of  the  modern 
orchestra  has  not  been  quite  logical.  It  has 
attained  a  standard  size  of  about  a  hundred 
performers  at  the  outside  ;  and  yet  that  is  an 
illogical  thing,  because  if  an  orchestra  of  a 
hundred  is  right  for  a  hall  of  a  certain  size,  it 
would  certainly  be  wrong  for  a  hall  of  greater  or 
less  dimensions.  A  skilful  organ-builder,  when 
he  is  designing  an  instrument  for  a  given  building, 
designs  it  in  accordance  with  a  certain  acoustic 
principle  or  diapason  of  that  building.  The  number 
of  pipes  and  stops,  and  the  scale  or  size  of  each 
pipe,  vary  with  the  size  and  shape  of  the  building, 
in  order  that  the  instrument  when  complete  shall 
generate  sound-waves  of  exactly  the  right  length 

[    150  ] 


AS  HEARER 

and  volume  in  proportion  to  the  building-.  Thus 
an  organ  that  would  be  suitable  for  the  Albert 
Hall  would  not  be  suitable  for  Ripon  Cathedral  ; 
yet  the  same  size  of  orchestra  would  be  expected 
to  serve  for  both. 

The  fact  that  we  have  thus  standardised  our 
orchestras  without  respect  to  the  size  of  building's 
in  which  they  are  heard  means  an  inevitable 
blurring  of  certain  effects  when  the  building  is 
out  of  proportion  to  the  size  of  the  orchestra.  It 
also  means,  for  the  listener,  that  music  which 
sounds  perfect  and  agreeable  in  one  place  will 
sound  imperfect  and  not  so  agreeable  in  another, 
and  the  listener  will  often  quite  unfairly  blame  the 
players  or  the  conductor  for  what  is  in  effect  a 
fault  of  acoustics.  This  is  one  of  the  few  direc- 
tions in  which  there  remains  something  to  be 
done  in  the  development  of  modern  orchestral 
performances.  No  one,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  yet 
discovered  what  is  the  ideal  building  for  an 
orchestra  of  a  hundred  players.  The  acoustics  of 
the  matter  are  still  left  to  guesswork,  and  we 
continue  to  build  concert-halls  the  dimensions  of 
which  are  governed  by  considerations  of  space, 
of  the  number  of  people  that  can  be  got  into 
them,  of  architectural  convenience — considera- 
tions of  every  kind,  in  fact,  except  the  one  which 

[    151    ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

ought  to  be  regarded  as  most  important  of  all — 
consideration  of  the  effect  which  will  be  produced 
by  a  full  orchestra  playing  in  the  building.  The 
ideal  concert-hall  will  be  so  built  that  the  average 
orchestra  of  a  hundred  players  will  sound  to  per- 
fection in  it ;  and  the  ideal  orchestra  of  the  future 
will  add  to  its  numbers  or  take  away  from  them 
in  accordance  with  the  size  of  the  hall  in  which  it 
is  playing.  Concert-hall  performances  will  then 
not  be  so  much  in  the  nature  of  a  compromise  as 
they  are  at  present. 

I  have  said  that  the  frame  of  mind  of  the 
listener  is  all-important,  and  especially  at  a  con- 
cert, because  of  the  unideal  conditions  which 
exist,  and  which  the  listener  has  often  to  conquer 
by  a  deliberate  effort  of  the  mind.  I  will  return  to 
these  conditions  presently  ;  but  in  order  to  realise 
that  they  need  not  exist,  I  would  point  out  three 
forms  of  music  in  which  the  preparation  of  the 
mind  on  the  part  of  the  listener  is  not  all-im- 
portant. The  one  is  chamber-music,  where  the 
music  is  so  near  to  one,  so  intimate  in  its  appeal, 
and  so  dominating,  that  we  surrender  ourselves  to 
it  at  once  ;  it  is  almost  as  though  we  were  taking 
a  direct  part  in  it  ourselves.  Another  such  case 
is  that  of  ideal  church  music  heard  in  a  vast 
cathedral.    There,    again,    no    effort    is    needed, 

[    152   ] 


AS  HEARER 

because  the  mind  is  already  prepared  by  the 
spirit  of  the  building,  by  the  exalting-  effect  of 
sublime  architecture  which,  when  the  soft  notes 
of  an  organ  begin  to  sound  in  a  great  cathedral, 
seems  to  have  found  an  actual  voice.  Organ- 
tones  are  the  true  voice  of  a  cathedral  ;  without 
them,  something  seems  to  be  wanting,  we  are 
conscious  of  a  sense  of  incompleteness  until  those 
suave  voices  are  uttered  in  the  soft  waves  of 
sound  that  flow  out  and  creep  round  the  building. 
The  mind  is  then  soothed  and  satisfied  ;  there  is 
a  sense  of  consummation.  The  third  instance  is 
that  of  the  opera — opera,  I  mean,  performed 
under  proper  conditions.  There  the  scenery  and 
the  movement  of  the  drama  attune  and  concen- 
trate the  mind  and  the  attention,  and  bear  the 
same  relation  to  the  music  as  the  building  itself 
does  in  the  case  of  a  cathedral.  The  effort  of  con- 
centration is  not  necessary,  because  a  want  has 
already  been  created  in  the  mind  which  the  music 
satisfies. 

But  to  return  to  the  concert-room.  How  often 
do  we  really  hear  music  under  ideal  conditions 
there  ?  We  get  so  accustomed  to  it  that  we  take 
all  the  deficiencies  of  the  concert-room  system  for 
granted  ;  but,  in  fact,  at  least  fifty  per  cent  of  our 
enjoyment   of  music   is   wasted    in    the   ordinary 

[    153   ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

concert-room.  To  begin  with,  we  are  very  seldom 
physically  comfortable.  It  appears  to  be  beyond 
the  ingenuity  of  man  to  devise  a  form  of  seat  for 
a  concert-room  or  a  church  which,  while  being 
hygienic  and  portable,  is  anything  else  but  an  in- 
strument of  mild  torture,  grotesquely  unfitted  to 
the  anatomy  of  the  human  beings  who  are  to 
occupy  it.  You  may  sometimes  sit  comfortably  in 
a  theatre  or  a  music-hall,  but  not  in  a  concert- 
room  or  a  church.  And  if  part  of  one's  conscious- 
ness is  occupied  with  aches  and  pains  of  one's 
body,  it  will  be  inevitably  less  free  to  steep  itself 
in  the  atmosphere,  musical  or  religious,  with 
which  it  is  surrounded.  There  are  many  other 
things  which  tend  to  distract  one  in  the  ordinary 
concert-room  ;  and  by  far  the  chief  distraction  is 
the  presence  of  other  people  there.  The  ideal 
concert-room  would  contain  only  one  person — 
oneself,  or  such  companions  as  one  carefully 
chose  to  admit — too  difficult  and  desirable  an 
achievement  for  any  one  but  a  man  who  was 
called  mad — King  Ludvvig  of  Bavaria.  Failing 
that,  the  next  ideal  arrangement  for  a  concert- 
room  would  be  that  every  seat  should  be  con- 
structed on  the  principle  of  the  condemned  pew 
in  a  prison  chapel,  from  which  murderers  have 
the  privilege  of  seeing  and   hearing  a  religious 

[    154   ] 


AS  HEARER 

celebration    alone,    without    afflicting",    or    being 
afflicted  by,  the  sight  of  their  fellow-convicts. 

But  not  being"  murderers  or  madmen,  we  have 
to  put  up  in  the  concert-room  with  the  thousand 
little  distractions  occasioned  by  the  presence  of 
other  human  beings,  each  with  his  or  her  own 
individuality,  and  each  given  to  the  expression  of 
it  in  some  way  which  may  not  be  our  way.  If  you 
are  moved  by  certain  music  to  wave  or  nod  your 
head,  there  is  no  reason  why  you  should  not  do 
so  ;  but  it  seems  a  pity  that  I  should  be  annoyed 
by  the  sight  of  it  to  such  an  extent  that  my  own 
enjoyment  is  quite  spoiled  ;  while  it  is  equally  a 
pity,  if  the  same  music  moves  me  to  smile  or 
make  faces,  that  you  should  be  disturbed  by  the 
spectacle.  Yet,  as  we  all  know,  these  little  things 
do  exist,  and  our  minds  are  in  such  an  extremely 
sensitive  state  when  we  are  listening  to  music 
that  the  tiniest  thing  is  apt  to  ruffle  and  jar 
us.  The  rustling  of  programmes,  the  movement 
and  shaking  about  of  feathers  in  hats,  the  jingle 
of  chains  and  purses,  and  above  all  that  annoy- 
ing passion  for  coughing  with  which  some  people 
are  invariably  seized  in  a  public  building — these 
are  all  things  which,  whether  we  are  conscious 
of  them  or  not,  subtract  from  the  sum  of  con- 
sciousness  which   we  have  at  our  disposal,   and 

[  155  ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

which  is  our  machinery  for  the  enjoyment  of 
music. 

Another  difficulty  which  the  hearer  has  to 
contend  with  Hes  in  what  may  be  called  the 
literary  interpretation  of  music.  The  annotated 
programme  is  sometimes,  and  ought  always  to 
be,  a  great  assistance  to  the  listener  ;  but  it  may 
also  be  a  great  snare  to  him.  It  may  be  overdone  ; 
he  may  come  to  rely  too  much  upon  it,  with  the 
result  that  any  music  about  which  there  is  no 
printed  information  available  is  apt  to  be  quite 
meaningless  to  him.  This  means  that  he  does 
not  use  his  imagination  ;  that,  reading  in  the 
programme  that  certain  mental  images  will  be 
produced  by  the  music  he  is  about  to  hear,  he 
has  those  mental  images  already  in  his  mind 
before  a  note  is  played,  and  merely  identifies 
what  he  hears  with  them.  This  is  a  very  different 
thing,  you  will  agree,  from  receiving  a  mental 
image  direct  from  the  music  itself,  and  it  is 
dangerous  because,  not  only  does  it  prevent  the 
imagination  from  being  exercised  on  its  own 
account,  but  because  it  is  apt  to  impose  upon  the 
mind  quite  an  arbitrary  association  of  certain 
music  with  certain  ideas. 

Now  the  number  of  images  or  ideas  that  you 
can  definitely  express  in  music,  so  that  there  shall 

[    156   ] 


^J'  HEARER 

be  no  doubt  whatever  about  your  meaninf^^  is 
comparatively  few.  Restlessness  and  tranquillity 
you  can  express,  but  the  restlessness  may  be 
that  of  strife,  of  discontent,  of  anger,  of  joyful 
impatience,  of  misery,  or  of  excitement  ;  and 
without  a  context  or  guide  of  some  kind  you 
cannot  tell  by  the  music  which  was  intended. 
And  the  tranquillity  may  be  that  of  a  hillside 
sleeping  in  summer  sunshine,  or  of  a  child  in  its 
mother's  care,  of  satisfied  love,  of  sluggish  con- 
tent, of  a  river  wandering  through  a  meadow,  of 
sleep,  or  of  death  ;  and  again  the  music  will  not 
definitely  tell  you  of  itself  which  of  these  ideas  is 
intended.  The  result  of  this  ambiguity  of  the 
musical  idiom  is  that  a  great  deal  is  left  to  the 
individual  temperament.  And  this,  again,  is  one 
of  the  great  charms  of  music,  because  each 
listener  will,  or  ought  to,  interpret  the  music  in 
accordance  with  his  own  particular  individuality. 
What  music  can  express  is  a  mental  atmo- 
sphere or,  as  we  say,  a  frame  of  mind.  The 
contemplation  of  certain  ideas  produces  in  the 
composer  a  certain  frame  of  mind,  to  which  he 
gives  expression  in  his  music  ;  and  that  induces 
in  the  listener  the  same  frame  of  mind,  which 
suggests  to  him,  not  necessarily  the  same  images 
which  inspired  it  in  the  composer,  but  the  set  of 

[    157    ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

images  which  are  most  closely  associated  in  the 
hearer's  personality  with  the  frame  of  mind  which 
has  been  induced.  To  take  an  elementary 
example  :  the  composer  contemplates  the  clouds 
on  a  still  summer  afternoon,  and  writes  a  tranquil 
open-air  piece  of  music.  I  hear  it  and  receive 
an  extremely  definite  open-air  impression  ;  but 
that  open-air  tranquillity  being  in  my  mind, 
through  youthful  associations  perhaps,  or  for 
any  one  out  of  a  dozen  reasons,  associated  with 
trees,  it  is  perhaps  large  masses  of  trees  and 
shadows  of  leafy  green  foliage  that  are  suggested 
to  me  when  I  hear  the  music  played.  And  to 
some  one  else  perhaps  that  tranquillity  of  the 
open-air  will  suggest  a  great,  still,  shimmering 
sheet  of  water  ;  and  to  yet  another  the  silence  and 
space  of  an  empty  moorland.  So  you  see,  in  this 
case,  although  the  composer  has  transmitted  his 
frame  of  mind  to  each  hearer,  yet  in  each  case  the 
image  suggested  to  the  mind  is  different.  Now 
comes  the  programme-annotator,  who  happens  to 
know  where  the  composer  was  when  he  invented 
that  music  ;  and  he  tells  us  that  this  piece  of  music 
represents  drifting  clouds  on  a  summer  afternoon. 
Unless  our  own  powers  of  musical  translation  are 
very  strong  and  very  sensitive,  we  shall  be  apt  to 
accept  that  statement,  to  think  about  clouds,  and 

[  158  ] 


AS  HEARER 

be  listening"  for  music  which  shall  suggest  clouds 
to  us,  and  when  we  hear  it  say  to  ourselves, 
^*That  is  cloud  music."  But  deep  within  each  of 
us  there  is  a  sense  of  disappointment  ;  for  to  one 
of  us  it  was  really  tree  music,  to  another  sea 
music,  and  to  another  moor  music  ;  our  mind  is 
really  at  war  with  our  consciousness,  and  the 
effect  is  bewildering  and  blurring. 

To  give  you  a  practical  example  of  this  con- 
dition of  things,  I  will  consider  a  piece  of  music 
which  will  be  familiar  to  most  of  my  readers — 
Chopin's  A  Minor  impromptu  —  and  write  two 
**  programmes  "  for  it,  each  of  which  shall  be 
different  from  the  other,  but  both  sufficiently  in 
accord  with  the  main  outlines  of  the  music.  Here 
is  one  interpretation. 

A  sensitive  impetuous  feminine  heart  goes 
on  its  %vay  in  ligiitness  and  in  sadness^  a  pretty 
lightness  and  a  pretty  sadness^  noiv grave ^  now 
gay^  but  a  beautiful  singing  thing  too  full  of 
life  and  movement  to  pause  for  very  long  or  be 
sad  for  very  long  ;  eager  and  impetuous^  soar- 
i7ig  07ie  moment^  drooping  the  next  as  though 
on  tired  ivings^  biit  filling  the  r^'orld  about  it 
ivith  melody  and  sunshine.  It  opens  to  no  more 
Jiuman  power  than  the  ordinary  things  about 

[  159  ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

it^  it  is  untouched^  tintroiibled — nntil  suddenly 
its  song  pauses^  it  beco7nes  quiet ^  awed,  gradu- 
ally htishing  itself  in  the  presence  of  some 
unknown  and  approaching  thing.  That  eager 
and  unconscious  lightness  becomes  conscious^ 
and  listens  and  waits  and  holds  its  breath, 

F^'oni  the  surrounding  wojdd  comes  another 
voice^firm,  dominating^  tro^ibWtg^  neither  gay 
nor  sad,  but  grave  tvith  purpose,  full  of  inten- 
tion, full  of  moment  and  of  destiny  for  the 
feminine  voice  that  fluttered  into  silence  at  its 
app7vach.  And  suddenly  the  grave  voice  breaks 
into  song,  into  melody  ;  and  the  feminine  voice, 
awakened  to  something  new,  answers  it,  breaks 
into  nezv  melody  with  it,  sings  a  new  and  more 
soaring  song,  in  which  its  oivn  life  and  move- 
ment  is  mingled  with  the  graver  and  stronger 
melody  of  the  other  voice.  This  double  song 
rises  in  intensity,  rises  to  fcTvoury  rises  to 
passion,  rises  to  storm. 

And  suddenly  it  breaks  off  i7i  some  such 
stor77iy  tra7isport,  247ico7npleted,  The  femi7ii7ie 
voice  retur7is,  goes  back  to  its  si77ipler  so7ig,  like 
a  so7ig  that  is  sung  by  solita7y  birds,  not  to 
please  any  other  C7'eatu7'e,  but  to  please  the 
singer  he7^self.  And  the  voice  si7igs  07i  to  itself 
in  the  old  st7'ai7i,  grave  a7id gay,  bubbling  and 

[    i6o    ] 


AS  HEARER 

soaring  and  drooping ;  and  yet  surely  there  is 
something  in  it  that  there  7vas  not  before^  a 
tinge  of  darker  colour^  a  strain  of  deeper  sad- 
ness,  a  vienioiy  of  that  greater^  graver  song 
which  it  sang  once  and  sings  no  more.  It 
becomes  quieter^  the  voice  sings  on  to  itself^  but 
ever  moix  mu7'niuri)igly  ;  it  sings  to  a  close,  it 
sings  itself  to  sleep. 

Now  there  you  have  a  purely  fantastic  verbal 
paraphrase  of  this  piece  of  music.  Play  it  to  your- 
self, or  think  of  it,  and  fit  my  little  story  to  it,  and 
see  how  well  it  fits.  Now  let  me  give  you  one  more 
interpretation.  Try  to  forget  the  other  and  your 
own,  pretend  that  you  are  about  to  hear  the  music 
for  the  first  time,  and  that  this  is  what  you  are 
going  to  hear. 

It  is  a  May  morning  i?i  a  ivoodland  glade 
through  which  a  great  main  road  passes.  The 
birds  are  singing  in  every  tixe,  the  hawthorn 
buds  are  breaking,  the  river  ripples  in  silver 
over  its  stones  and  pebbles,  the  breeze,  a  cool 
and  wonderful  morning  breeze  of  spring,  conies 
blowing  doivn  the  valley,  tossing  the  tree-tops 
and  making  the  young  leaves  flash  back  the 
sunshine  from  a  thousand  shining  surfaces. 
White  clouds  hurry  acj'oss  the  valley,  and  their 

L  [    i6i    ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

shadows  stream  over  the  77ieadows  where  the 
la  m  bs  a  re  frisk  ing  and  p  lay  ing,  A  n  d  eve  r  the 
breeze  blows  fresher  and  fresher ;  it  tumbles 
the  tree-tops  merrily^  so  that  the  birds  that  are 
singing  there  break  into  louder  and  louder 
melody. 

And  suddenly  the  birds  are  stilled ;  there  is 
a  lull  in  the  7vind ;  another  sound  breaks  upon 
their  ears — the  tramp  of  feet ^  the  sotind  of 
military  music.  Along  the  road  through  the 
valley  is  marching  a  battalion  of  soldiers ; 
drums  beatings  flags  fly  ingy  bands  play  ing^  and 
the  s  ten  light  flashing  on  stvords  arid  helmets  and 
bayonets.  The  birds  ai^e  silent  as  this  mighty 
force  sweeps  by^  the  music gi^oiving  louder  and 
louder  and  the  banners  streaming  in  the  ivind 
and  unrolling  all  their  bright  colours  to  the 
sun.  Aiid  presently,  while  the  army  still 
7naixhes  by,  the  soldie7's  break  into  a  song^ 
not  a  fighting  song^  bid  a  marching  song  of 
the  7'oady  of  the  things  that  they  have  left 
behind  the Jiiy  the  things  that  make  life  precious 
to  thein — not  a  song  of  the  fight y  but  a  song  of 
the  things  for  which  inen  fight.  And  the  song 
passes  and  ends^  and  the  army  passes,  the 
m-usic  dies  away  in  the  distance ;  the  I'oad  is 
empty  again,    and  over  the  woodland  glade 

[    162   ] 


AS  HEARER 

sweeps  the  sicnsJiine.  Again  comes  the  bi'ceze^ 
again  wakes  the  vinsic  oj  the  tree-tops^  the 
love-music  of  the  birds ;  and  so  wakings  it 
soars  through  the  mornings  it  sings  itself  into 
ecstasy  till  the  su/i  stands  high  in  the  heavens, 
and  the  breeze  dies,  and  sound  and  movement 
begin  to  sink  into  noontide  quiet,  into  noontide 
rest,  into  the  peace  and  silence  of  the  sun. 

You  see  that  one  might  go  on  to  any  extent 
inventhig  verbal  paraphrases  for  a  piece  of 
music  like  this,  and  each  one  would  find  its 
adherents  ;  but  clearly  it  is  entirely  a  matter 
of  choice  which  you  take  ;  whatever  you  feel 
most  truly  in  yourself,  that  is  the  right  one. 
So  far  as  Chopin  is  concerned,  I  am  sure  nothing 
at  all  like  either  of  my  interpretations  was  in  his 
mind  when  he  wrote  that  music.  He  found  an 
interesting  figure  in  two  parts  and  worked  it  up 
to  a  climax  ;  then,  as  a  little  variety  was  demanded 
to  make  the  music  symmetrical  and  beautiful  in 
form,  he  added  a  simple  melody  in  the  middle  by 
way  of  contrast,  and  developed  and  embroidered 
it  in  his  own  inimitable  manner.  And  then  again, 
for  the  sake  of  symmetry  of  form,  he  returned  to 
his  first  figure  and  brought  the  music  to  a  close. 
But  what  is  important  is  that  in  inventing  that 

[    163   ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

music,  although  his  ideas  were  not  the  ideas  which 
I  have  suggested  to  you,  his  frame  of  mind  was 
a  similar  frame  of  mind  to  that  suggested  to  me 
by  the  images  I  have  given  you.  The  tone  of  the 
middle  passage  is  obviously  graver  and  sterner 
than  that  of  the  beginning  and  the  end  ;  and  so 
far  my  interpretation  is  not  discordant  with  the 
composer's  intention,  although  for  me  to  impress 
it  upon  any  one,  or  to  suggest  to  you  that  it  is 
with  those  images  in  your  mind  that  you  should 
in  future  listen  to  this  music,  would  be  a  gross 
assumption  on  my  part,  and  an  attempt  to  get 
you  to  substitute  my  ideas  for  the  composer's  and 
your  own. 

The  truth  is  that  when  one  sits  down  to  hear 
a  piece  of  music,  one  should  try  to  make  one's 
mind  as  nearly  a  blank  as  possible  ;  in  fact,  the 
kind  of  concentration  of  mind  needed  is  that 
most  difficult  of  all  kinds — concentration  upon 
nothing.  One  wants  to  prepare,  as  it  were, 
a  field  of  white  upon  which  the  music  can  throw 
its  own  images  ;  and  naturally  the  slightest  dis- 
traction, the  slightest  sound  or  sight,  is  just  as 
likely  to  get  thrown  upon  the  field  as  the  music 
is.  That  is  why  our  modern  concert-rooms  are  in 
some  ways  so  unsuitable  for  the  hearing  of  music. 
The  sense  of  sight  can  distract  us  just  as  easily 

[    164  ] 


AS  HEARER 

as  the  sense  of  sound,  and  my  own  feeling-  Is  that 
music,  to  be  heard  in  perfection,  should  be  heard 
in  absolute  darkness.  I  know  that  there  are 
practical  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  carrying 
out  of  that  idea,  but  any  one  who  has  attended 
a  performance  of  Wagner  operas  at  Bayreuth  or 
Munich,  or  at  any  of  the  German  theatres  where 
his  ideas  are  properly  carried  out,  must  have  been 
conscious  of  the  great  practical  assistance  which 
absolute  darkness  gives  to  the  sense  of  hearing, 
and  to  mental  concentration  of  that  sense.  In  the 
ideal  concert-room  of  the  future  the  lights  will 
certainly  be  turned  down  during  the  performance 
of  orchestral  music,  and  probably  of  all  music. 
I  say  nothing  about  ballad  concerts,  or  other 
occasions  devoted  to  the  worship  of  the  prima 
don7ia^  because  these  things  have  nothing  to  do 
with  ideal  music  ;  but  the  first  conductor  who  in- 
sists upon  a  darkened  hall  for  the  performance  of 
a  symphony  w^ill  make  an  advance  which  others 
will  soon  be  glad  to  follow. 

There  is  another  thing  which  curiously  affects 
one's  mood  in  listening  to  music,  and  that  is  the 
time  of  day  in  which  we  hear  it.  At  present 
most  big  concerts  are  given  in  the  evening, 
which  is  perhaps  the  worst  time  of  day  for  the 
proper  appreciation   of    music.      Like    so    many 

[  165  ] 


THE  MUSICIAN 

other  things  in  our  lives,  this  is  a  compromise  ; 
the  evening  is  the  only  time  which  many  people 
have  at  their  disposal,  and  they  come  to  hear 
music  tired  out  with  the  labours  of  the  day. 
That  is  all  wrong.  It  is  only  certain  kinds  of 
music,  very  soothing,  very  hypnotic  and  physical 
in  their  effect,  that  one  can  really  listen  to  with 
any  pleasure  when  one  is  tired  ;  but  a  large  work 
demanding  great  concentration,  and  leading  one 
through  a  vast  range  of  emotion  or  of  ideas, 
is  in  itself  extremely  exhausting,  and  is  not 
a  thing  to  come  to  at  the  end  of  the  day.  Indeed, 
most  of  us  lead  absurdly  irrational  lives.  In  the 
ideal  life,  the  morning  would  be  devoted  to  work 
— and  by  the  morning  I  mean  a  really  long 
morning,  say  from  eight  o'clock  till  one  ;  the 
afternoon  would  be  devoted  to  aesthetic  recreation 
and  more  serious  kinds  of  artistic  enjoyment, 
such  as  music  and  the  drama  ;  the  evening  would 
be  left  free  for  only  the  lightest  kinds  of  recrea- 
tion and  amusement,  so  that  we  should  always 
finish  the  day,  if  possible,  in  a  laughing  mood. 
Some  people  might  consider  that  my  arrange- 
ment involved  a  great  waste  of  working  time  ;  \ 
but  I  believe  if  all  the  people  who  now  spread 
their  work  over  from  eight  to  ten  hours  were 
to  concentrate  it  into  those  morning  hours,  they 

[    i66   ] 


^4^^  HEARER 

might  so  occupy  their  minds  for  the  rest  of  the 
day  that  both  the  volume  and  quaHty  of  their 
work  would  be  increased  rather  than  decreased. 
People  would  live  more  fully,  and  their  lives 
would  be  enlarged  and  extended  ;  and  music 
would  then  have  its  rightful  place  as  an  educating, 
civilising,  and  spiritualising  influence.  As  it  is, 
it  is  mostly  listened  to  by  people  who  are  mentally 
and  physically  tired,  and  its  message  is  more  than 
half  muffled  and  lost. 

It  may  be  said  that  I  dwell  too  much  on  ideal 
conditions  instead  of  on  conditions  as  they  exist ; 
but  it  is  only  by  concentrating  our  minds  on  the 
ideal  that  we  ever  improve  conditions  at  all,  or 
move  them  on  in  the  direction  of  our  desire.  And 
we  should  remember  that  in  the  three  groups  of 
people  among  whom  the  actual  birth  of  musical 
sensation  takes  place — the  composer,  the  inter- 
preter, and  the  hearer — the  hearer  has  an  equally 
important  place  with  the  other  two.  In  some  ways 
he  is  the  predominant  partner,  for  it  is  he  who 
ultimately  determines  how  the  music  shall  be  pro- 
duced, and  how  it  shall  be  interpreted,  and  it  is 
he  who,  by  regulating  the  conditions  in  which 
music  is  produced  and  listened  to,  can  do  more 
than  any  one  else  in  securing  the  attainment 
of  the  ideal. 

[    167   ] 


THE  ART  OF  THE 
CONDUCTOR 


THE  ART  OF  THE 
CONDUCTOR 

CONDUCTING  as  we  know  it  to-day— 
that  is  to  say,  the  interpretation  of  com- 
plex symphonic  music  by  one  man — is  an 
entirely  modern  art.  Bach,  Haydn,  Mozart,  or 
Beethoven  never  heard  their  works  as  we  can  hear 
them.  In  one  sense  they  wrote  entirely  for  the 
future  ;  when  they  looked  at  their  scores  they  no 
doubt  realised  and  heard  with  the  inner  ear  all 
the  delicate  effects  and  possibilities  of  which  the 
music  was  capable  ;  but  they  never  heard  it  with 
their  outward  ears.  Even  at  the  time  of  Bee- 
thoven's death  orchestral  performances  were  ex- 
tremely rough  ;  there  was  no  such  thing  as  a 
really  trained  professional  orchestra,  accustomed 
always  to  play  together,  available  for  the  inter- 
pretation of  symphonic  music  ;  but  small  perma- 
nent orchestras  were  on  such  occasions  reinforced 
by  amateurs,  with  such  results  as  we  know.  And 
even  when  Mendelssohn,  who  did  so  much  to 
draw  attention  to  the  great  music  of  the  past  and 

[    171    ] 


THE  ART  OF 

to  secure  its  adequate  interpretation,  came  to  con- 
duct symphonies  and  large  orchestral  works,  his 
sole  advice  to  conductors  was  to  take  everything 
at  a  fairly  brisk  ternpo^  so  that  faults  of  execution 
should  not  be  too  prominent.  And  this  was  his 
own  method. 

The  modern  art  of  conducting  was  invented  by 
Richard  Wagner.  In  saying  this  I  do  not  forget 
Hector  Berlioz,  who  at  the  same  time  and  by 
different  means  had  arrived  at  profound  dissatis- 
faction with  the  existing  methods,  and  laboured  to 
improve  them  ;  but  Berlioz  founded  no  school  of 
conducting,  while  Wagner  sent  out  disciples  all 
over  the  musical  world  to  spread  the  good  news 
that  the  *^ pigtail"  school,  as  he  called  it,  was  at 
an  end,  and  that  orchestral  performance  was  a 
thing  as  capable  of  variety  and  contrast  and  deli- 
cacy in  the  range  of  its  expression  as  any  other 
form  of  musical  interpretation.  This  art  arose  en- 
tirely from  his  own  works.  He  had  indeed,  by 
long  and  patient  study  of  Beethoven,  Mozart, 
and  Weber,  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  the 
orchestral  works  of  the  great  masters  had 
hardly  ever  been  properly  heard,  and  his  essay  on 
conducting  marked  an  epoch  in  the  history  of 
music.  But  when  his  own  scores  came  to  be 
examined,  they  were  pronounced  unplayable.  By 

[    172   ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 

the  old  methods,  moreover,  they  were  unplayable, 
and  ghastly  indeed  must  have  been  some  of  the 
performances  of  opera  orchestras  in  Germany  at 
their  first  rehearsal  of  his  scores.  No  amount  of 
merely  beating  one,  two,  three,  four  in  a  bar 
could  produce  melody  and  harmony  out  of  the 
chaos  presented  by  the  score.  The  thing  seemed 
hopeless. 

Like  every  creator  or  originator,  Wagner  had 
to  begin  at  the  beginning  and  form  the  tools  with 
which  his  work  was  to  be  done.  Liszt  and  Von 
Billow,  the  greatest  contemporary  masters  of  the 
technique  of  the  pianoforte,  were  the  first  to 
realise  that  there  was  at  least  a  possibility  of  the 
performance  of  Wagner's  works  ;  they  had  learned 
from  him  how  to  conduct  Beethoven,  and  the  know- 
ledge thus  gained  was  applied  to  the  interpreta- 
tion of  his  own  scores.  And  after  them  he  trained 
a  whole  band  of  disciples  in  the  interpretation  of 
his  operas — Richter,  Seidl,  Levi,  Richard  Strauss, 
Mottl,  Weingartner,  and  Nikisch  were  the  chief 
of  them  ;  all  these  became  great  exponents  of  the 
new  art  of  conductino*. 

These  men  had  many  varieties  of  quality  and 
talent,  but  it  will  be  seen  that  one  thing  was 
common  to  the  equipment  of  all  of  them  :  they 
were  all  trained  in  the  interpretation  of  one  set 

[    '73   ] 


THE  ART  OF 

of  works — Wagner's  own  operas.  And  that  fact 
gives  us  the  key  to  the  new  art  of  conducting  as 
compared  with  the  old  art  of  beating  time  ;  for 
they  had  these  scores  absolutely  in  their  heads. 
They  lived  with  them  ;  their  lives  were  spent  in 
rehearsing  and  copying  and  drilling  until  every 
note  was  as  much  their  own  as  if  they  had  them- 
selves composed  the  score  ;  thus  when  they  came 
to  conduct  they  were  not  merely  reading  the 
music  of  the  printed  page  a  bar  in  advance  of 
the  orchestra  ;  they  were  leading  the  orchestra 
in  something  that  was  within  themselves,  some- 
thing that  came  from  their  own  inner  being. 
They  knew  every  note  of  every  part,  often  knew 
it  better  than  the  player  himself;  and  if  he 
stumbled  or  made  a  mistake  they  could  sing  the 
right  note  for  him  through  all  the  maze  of  other 
parts. 

This  kind  of  familiaritv  with  the  score  on  the 
part  of  the  conductor  had  been  practically  un- 
known before,  and  it  is  one  of  the  chief  features 
of  modern  conducting.  Before  the  conductor 
to-day  confronts  an  orchestra  with  a  new  score 
he  has  probably  spent  hours  in  silent  study  of  it, 
reading  it  to  himself  as  you  read  a  book  of 
which  you  wish  to  master  the  contents,  and  being 
already  familiar  with  the  sound  of  every  part  of 

[  174  ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 

it  when  he  takes  his  place  at  the  first  rehearsal. 
The  first  band  of  Wag-ner's  disciples,  realising 
the  enormous  mastery  which  this  familiarity 
with  the  music  gave  them  over  the  orchestra, 
applied  it  to  other  works  which  they  had  to 
interpret  ;  applied  it  in  time  to  every  piece  of 
music  laid  on  the  desk  before  them  ;  with  the 
result  that  in  the  chaos  of  a  first  "running- 
through  "  they  could  recognise  the  relation  of 
the  orchestral  players'  efforts  to  the  true  results 
intended  by  the  composer. 

The  interpretation  of  the  Wagnerian  scores 
was  also  a  great  training  ground  for  conductors 
in  the  actual  instrumental  technique  of  the  or- 
chestra ;  and  in  the  extension  of  this,  and  the 
first  modern  definition  of  it  in  the  form  of  an 
authoritative  monograph,  the  work  of  Hector 
Berlioz  is  pre-eminent.  It  was  of  old  the  in- 
variable excuse  of  the  lazy  orchestral  player  to 
pronounce  a  passage  presenting  any  unusual 
difficulties  "unplayable"  ;  and  the  ignorant  con- 
ductor, hesitating  to  contradict  the  player  on 
a  matter  concerning  the  technique  of  his  own 
instrument,  was  obliged  to  accept  his  verdict. 
But  Berlioz  and  the  disciples  of  Wagner  changed 
all  that.  They  armed  themselves  with  an  exact 
knowledge  of  what  was  and  what  was  not  possible 

[  >;5  ] 


THE  ART  OF 

for  every  instrument  in  the  orchestra  ;  they  were 
careful  not  to  write  anything  physically  impos- 
sible. They  thus  abolished  a  great  piece  of  bluff 
with  which  orchestral  players  had  hitherto  been 
able  to  oppose  the  exacting  conductor  ;  for  com- 
posers had  often  written  without  any  regard  to 
the  construction  of  the  instrument  employed, 
had  even  written  notes  which  did  not  exist  on 
the  instrument;  so  that  the  conductor  who  should 
have  demanded  their  execution  would  have  been 
laughed  at  by  his  band,  which  would  not  fail  to 
take  advantage  of  this  state  of  affairs  when  pre- 
sented with  a  passage  which  was  merely  difficult 
and  not  impossible.  But  under  the  new  regime 
the  conductors  very  often  knew  as  much  about 
the  technique  of  the  instrument  as  did  the  players 
themselves  ;  they  were  firm  in  demanding  the 
execution  of  passages  which  were  only  difficult 
because  they  were  unusual  ;  and  the  natural  pride 
of  the  artist,  responding  to  the  challenge,  was 
found  equal  to  the  new  demands.  The  old  phrase 
*^I  can't  do  impossibilities,"  or  ^*  I  can't  play 
notes  that  are  not  on  the  instrument  "  gave  way 
to  ^Mf  the  instrument  can  play  it  I  can  play  it." 
The  first  result  of  this  was  a  great  increase  in 
the  efficiency  of  orchestral  players,  who  began  to 
find  that  their  work  was  not  a  mere  dull,  slovenly, 

[    '76  ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 

and  rhythmic  scraping*  and  blowing-,  but  a  new 
and  intricate  art  in  which  their  artistic  pride  was 
challenged,  a  task  arduous  indeed  and  involving 
hitherto  unheard-of  labour  and  study,  but  re- 
warded, as  all  true  artistic  labour  is,  by  the  new 
interest  and  intrinsic  joy  found  in  the  doing 
of  the  work.  Thus  the  conductors  improved 
the  orchestras  ;  the  orchestras  reacted  on  the 
conductors  ;  the  public  found  new  pleasure  in 
listening  to  orchestral  performances  ;  composers 
found  a  limitless  field  of  possibilities  in  orches- 
tration, and  the  whole  art  of  music,  borne  high 
on  this  great  wave,  was  swept  forward  to  a  new 
stage  in  its  development. 

The  secret  of  conducting  is  domination.  That 
can  be  achieved  in  various  ways  ;  sometimes  by 
magnetism,  as  in  the  case  of  Nikisch  and  Landon 
Ronald  ;  sometimes  by  intellectual  weight  and 
assurance  and  calm  majestic  grasp  of  the  whole 
artistic  material,  as  in  the  case  of  Hans  Richter  ; 
sometimes  by  unflinching  strictness  and  disci- 
pline, as  in  the  case  of  Henry  Wood  ;  sometimes 
by  sheer  native  enthusiasm  for  the  work,  as  in  the 
case  of  that  unique  person  among  conductors, 
Thomas  Beecham.  We  shall  consider  the  chief 
of  these  methods  in  the  persons  of  their  ex- 
ponents ;    but    we    must   bear    in    mind    that    the 

M  [    177    ] 


THE  ART  OF 

domination  thus  exercised  must  also  be  founded 
on  absolute  technical  equipment.  The  man  who 
stands  up  before  an  orchestra  with  a  baton  in  his 
hand  stands  before  a  most  formidable  array  of 
expert  criticism,  compared  with  which  the  criti- 
cism of  the  audience  behind  him  is  as  nothing*. 
Every  member  of  the  orchestra  is  in  a  sense  the 
conductor's  examiner  in  a  branch  of  art  of  which 
tlie  player  has  made  himself  a  master  ;  and  the 
slightest  failure  or  the  smallest  lack  of  grasp 
will  not  go  unnoticed.  And  orchestras  are  very 
like  a  collection  of  schoolboys  in  some  ways  ; 
although  they  may  consist  of  serious  and  re- 
sponsible artists,  they  will  at  once  take  advantage 
of  any  lack  of  firmness  and  any  lack  of  know- 
ledge on  the  part  of  their  conductor,  and, 
according  to  the  circumstances,  be  impish, 
mulish,  stupid,  or  perverse.  If  they  think  that 
their  conductor  is  trying  to  impose  upon  them  in 
any  way,  they  will  put  up  one  time-honoured 
bluff  after  another  ;  and  equally,  if  the  bluff  fails 
or  is  seen  through  by  the  conductor,  they  will 
smilingly  give  it  up  and  either  try  another  or 
set  to  work  in  serious  earnest.  Unless  the  con- 
ductor holds  them  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand,  he 
is  entirely  at  their  mercy  ;  they  can  ruin  his  per- 
formance if  they  choose  ;  or,  if  he  has  won  their 

[  178  ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 

sympathy,  they  can  help  him  over  the  awkward 
places  in  which  any  conductor  may  find  himself, 
and  never  g-ive  him  away  to  the  audience.  There- 
fore the  first  thing  which  the  conductor  has  to 
achieve  is  absolute  mastery  of  his  forces.  Let 
us  study  this  mastery  as  revealed  in  three  per- 
sonalities. 


THE  DISCIPLINARIAN 

If  Sir  Henry  Wood  had  no  other  claim  to 
consideration  he  would  be  famous  as  the  man 
who  had  made  good  orchestral  music  on  a 
large  scale  popular  and  possible  in  London. 
There  were  pioneers  before  him,  of  course  ;  the 
names  of  Manns  and  Henschel,  for  example, 
should  never  be  forgotten  in  England  ;  there 
were  societies  and  orchestras  subsidised  by  asso- 
ciations of  rich  amateurs  ;  there  were  a  few  en- 
thusiastic musicians  who  gave  orchestral  concerts 
willingly,  not  hoping  that  they  would  pay,  but 
content  if  the  concert-giver  could  get  out  without 
serious  loss.  How  the  association  of  Henry  Wood 
and  Mr.  Newman  came  about  which  changed  all 
that  is  an  old  story  now ;  but  it  is  a  story  that  has 

[    '79   ] 


THE  ART  OF 

brought  great  and  deserved  credit  to  Henry 
Wood  and  great  convenience  to  the  London 
public.  Among  other  things,  it  has  raised 
Henry  Wood  from  the  position  of  a  City  organist 
to  that  of  the  chief  of  EngHsh  conductors  ;  I  do 
not  think  that  any  one  could  seriously  and  justly 
deny  his  right  to  the  title.  For  a  long  time, 
indeed,  he  was  the  only  English  conductor 
equipped  with  a  modern  technique  and  modern 
methods  ;  for  brief  as  the  history  of  the  art  of 
conducting  is,  it  has  already  passed  through  two 
phases — the  school  of  Wagner  and  Biilow  and 
Richter,  who  were  its  authors  and  beginners, 
and  whom  most  of  the  great  German  conductors 
have  followed,  and  the  school  of  Nikisch,  who, 
although  originally  one  of  Wagner's  young  men, 
has  carried  the  art  of  conducting  a  stage  farther 
than  that  to  which  his  masters  brought  it,  and 
whose  influence  on  the  modern  French  and 
English  schools  is  strong.  Henry  Wood  was  the 
first  conductor  in  England  to  realise  that  a  very 
perfect  manual  technique  is  as  important  for  a 
conductor  as  for  a  pianist ;  he  was  also  the  first 
to  acquire  it.  For  a  great  many  years  his  pres- 
tige was  unchallenged,  his  position  unthreatened  ; 
no  one  else  had  a  chance.  But  like  all  great  pioneers 
he  sowed  more  than  he  could  reap  himself,  and 

[    i^o  ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 

Other  men  have  come  up  to  share  the  harvest 
with  him.  It  is  inevitable,  and  he  will  be  the  last 
to  regret  it  ;  for  time  and  the  seasons  cannot  be 
bound  to  the  ploughshare  of  one  man,  nor  are 
those  his  only  harvests  which  he  gathers  with  his 
own  hand.  In  a  way  Henry  Wood  has  had  a 
great  part  in  preparing  the  success  of  some  of  the 
younger  men  who  are  now  becoming  his  rivals. 
For  a  long  time  their  rivalry  was  not  serious  ; 
but  a  few  years  ago  a  wave  of  new  life  went  over 
orchestral  music  in  London,  and  instead  of  one 
conductor  and  one  orchestra  there  were  half  a 
dozen.  Henry  Wood's  position  was  no  longer 
unchallenged  ;  one  felt  that  the  time  had  come 
for  him  either  to  make  good  his  position  by 
further  energy  and  advance,  or  to  prepare  for 
that  slow  process  of  retiring  into  the  background, 
which  is  the  ultimate  fate  of  every  successful 
man,  however  brilliant  he  may  have  been. 

He  held  his  own.  The  summer  seasons  of 
Promenade  Concerts  rouse  an  increasing  degree 
of  enthusiasm  among  their  frequenters,  who  have 
excellent  value  for  their  money,  and  hear  an 
unusual  number  of  new  works  as  well  as  all  their 
old  favourites  ;  and  to  carry  through  a  season  like 
this,  with  a  long  concert  every  night  conducted 
in  a  stifling  atmosphere,  as  well  as  going  through 

[    i8i    ] 


THE  ART  OF 

all  the  work  Incidental  to  other  orchestral  engage- 
ments, is  a  feat  in  which  no  living  conductor 
has  achieved  so  much  success  as  Henry  Wood. 
It  is  true  that  of  the  new  works  produced  by 
Henry  Wood  there  are  more  foreign  than  English 
compositions  ;  he  has  always  shown  a  preference 
for  foreign  music,  notably  for  that  of  the  Russian 
and  Slav  schools  ;  in  fact,  we  owe  a  great  deal  of 
our  knowledge  of  such  music  here  to  him.  I  am 
delighted  that  he  should  continue  on  this  line  ; 
there  are  plenty  of  other  people  looking  after 
English  music — in  fact,  we  are  in  for  something 
like  an  orgy  of  it,  and  that  also  is  an  excellent 
thing  and  a  sign  of  native  artistic  life.  But  modern 
English  music  has  many  grave  disadvantages  from 
the  conductor's  point  of  view,  and  Henry  Wood 
is  a  conductor  who  has  always  above  all  things 
played  for  his  own  hand.  He  has  not  the  rehearsal 
time  to  spare  for  a  complex  work  unless  it  is 
likely  to  take  a  permanent  place  in  his  repertoire 
and  to  add  to  his  own  credit  as  a  conductor — a 
perfectly  comprehensible  point  of  view.  Such 
works  are  almost  always  difficult  and  require 
serious  rehearsing  to  make  anything  of  them  ; 
they  are  generally  scored  for  a  large  and  therefore 
expensive  orchestra,  and  the  box-office  receipts 
show    quite  clearly  that  the  economic    response 

[    182   ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 

to  them  is  not  commensurate  with  the  artistic 
enthusiasm  which  produces  them.  Often  works 
like  these,  which  have  cost  time  and  money  to 
produce,  become  practically  obsolete  after  their 
first  performance  ;  in  other  words,  every  penny 
spent  in  producing"  them  has  to  be  written  off ; 
whereas  the  same  money  could  often  be  invested 
in  the  preparation  of  other  new  works  which 
would  almost  certainly  prove  popular.  I  think  this 
state  of  things  will  gradually  change,  but  in  the 
meantime  the  guarantors  of  concerts,  and  often 
the  members  of  the  orchestra  themselves,  have  to 
bear  the  losses  incidental  to  musical  patriotism. 
But  from  Henry  Wood's  point  of  view  there  is 
another  reason  wiiy  he  leans  so  much  to  music  of 
quite  a  different  school — because  it  particularly 
suits  his  genius  as  a  conductor,  and  music  of  the 
English  school,  wdth  rare  exceptions,  does  not. 
And  what  is  the  nature  of  this  genius?  I  am  told 
that  Henry  Wood  is  nicknamed  by  members  of 
his  orchestra  the  **  Band-Sergeant,"  and  the  name 
indicates  the  direction  in  which  a  great  part  of  his 
successes  and  a  certain  part  of  his  defects  lie.  He 
is  a  great  organiser,  a  great  disciplinarian,  a  great 
business  man,  a  great  showman  ;  he  undertakes 
to  produce  a  certain  effect  on  the  public,  and 
he    produces    it.    His    rehearsals    are    more    like 

[  1S3  ] 


THE  ART  OF 

barrack-yard  parades  than  the  easy-going,  pipe- 
smoking,  just-run -it-through-gentlemen -please 
conversaziones  of  the  old  days  ;  programmes  are 
mapped  out  like  time-tables  of  a  great  railway 
system  ;  it  is  pure  business  from  first  to  last.  That 
is  a  great  strength  ;  let  no  one  think  that  any 
kind  of  excellence,  artistic  or  otherwise,  is  achieved 
by  loose  and  slipshod  methods.  Yet  there  remains 
in  the  art  of  interpreting  music  an  entirely 
intangible,  ethereal  quality  that  cannot  be  bound 
or  scheduled  or  reduced  to  a  departmental 
system  ;  and  sometimes  from  amid  all  Henry 
Wood's  perfect  organisation  and  perfect  discipline 
that  wayward  spirit  escapes  and  flies  away,  and 
the  result  is  hard  and  mechanical  and  soulless. 
That  it  should  be  so  is  not  wonderful  ;  that  it 
should  so  seldom  be  so  is  to  me  very  wonderful 
indeed. 

I  have  spoken  of  Henry  Wood's  technique  and 
of  his  sympathy  with  Slavonic  music.  It  has 
indeed  moulded  him,  moulded  his  mind,  and 
affected  even  his  appearance,  so  that  now  he 
looks  more  like  a  foreigner  than  an  Englishman 
— an  effect  to  which  the  flowing  tie  and  rugged 
beard  contribute.  Henry  Wood  is  a  great  master 
of  savage  rhythm  and  of  extreme  luiances^  but 
not  of  those    subtler  dynamic   variations   which 

[    184   ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 

make  their  balance  and  contrast  within  a  much 
smaller  range  ;  he  is  great  at  the  thunder  and 
the  whisper,  but  not  at  that  steadier  and  more 
human  diapason  that  is  the  body  of  life  and  art  in 
this  world  ;  he  can  always  produce  an  effect, 
but  he  is  not  so  good  at  interpreting  a  condition 
or  a  mood.  Perhaps  this  is  little  more  than 
saying  he  is,  like  most  of  us,  imperfect ;  that  the 
upper  part  of  his  face,  with  its  fine  brow  and 
magnetic  eyes,  is  not  matched  by  the  lower 
part  ;  that  he  is  a  god  with  feet  of  clay — or,  say, 
Orpheus  in  peg-top  trousers. 

He  has  certain  mannerisms  with  which  the  world 
is  familiar — a  fixed  routine  of  gesture  which 
personally  I  think  tiresome  and  unworthy.  I 
would  not  like  to  say  that  my  opinion  is  shared 
by  the  majority  of  his  public,  or  that  the  per- 
formance which  he  goes  through  when  conducting 
a  great  work  is  not  carefully  calculated  to  assist 
his  personality.  But  it  is  a  melancholy  thing, 
after  listening  to  a  really  fine  interpretation  of  a 
noble  work,  full  of  fire  and  rhythm,  passion  and 
tenderness  and  understanding,  to  see  the  inter- 
preter posturing  before  the  audience,  with  ges- 
tures comparable  only  to  those  of  a  trapeze 
performer  who  has  just  alighted  on  the  canvas, 
bending  on   this  side  and   that,    and  describing, 

[    1S5   ] 


THE  ART  OF 

between  bearded  lips  and  the  utmost  reach  of 
his  arm,  arcs  in  the  air  which  Ruskin  might  have 
described  as  ^* curves  of  beauty,"  but  which  for 
my  part  I  find  merely  disconcerting  and  disagree- 
able. Yet  it  would  be  easy  to  exaggerate  the 
importance  of  these  defects  of  Henry  Wood's 
qualities — qualities  which  have  raised  him  where 
he  is,  high  above  most  of  us  who  criticise  him. 
Forget  his  antics  and  gestures  in  the  moment  of 
applause  ;  watch  his  right  wrist  when  he  is  at 
work — that  most  wonderful  wrist  in  the  world  of 
conducting  ;  watch  the  left  hand,  which  talks  to 
the  horns  and  the  wood-wind  and  'cellos  like  a 
familiar  spirit ;  watch  that  glance  which  is  always 
ready  to  look  up  from  the  score  a  second  or  two 
before  some  unimportant  entry  to  reassure  the 
player  that  the  master's  eye  is  on  him  and  the 
master's  mind  controlling  his  work — look  at  these, 
and  you  will  be  studying  the  elements  of  a 
technique  which  is  in  many  ways  unrivalled  in 
the  world,  and  marks  in  England  the  greatest 
height  to  which  we  have  so  far  attained  in  this 
art. 


[    ISO    ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 


II 

THE   EMOTIONAL 

The  greatest  master  of  the  emotional  method 
was  Nikisch  ;  but  his  emotion  is  becoming  worn 
out,  spent,  exhausted  ;  and  his  mantle  has  fallen 
on  his  disciple,  Landon  Ronald,  who  is  the  chief 
exponent  of  this  method  in  England.  Ronald 
as  a  conductor  is  one  with  the  musicians  and 
composers  of  the  young  English  school  who, 
although  themselves  the  reverse  of  academic,  are 
really  the  true  musical  progeny  of  the  more 
academic  generation  which  preceded  them,  and 
which  some  of  them  affect  to  despise.  One  of  the 
soundest  characteristics  of  this  young  English 
school — the  best  of  them,  I  mean- — is  their 
extreme  technical  accomplishment  ;  a  quality 
which  they  owe  almost  entirely  to  the  despised 
contrapuntists.  They  are  all  aware  that  the  con- 
trapuntists were  w^oefully  lacking  in  inspiration  ; 
and  they  feel,  no  doubt,  that  the  contempt  that 
they  entertain  for  their  methods  can  best  be  justi- 
fied by  a  younger  generation  that  shows  itself 
not  inferior  to  the  old  in  technical  ability. 

[    >87   ] 


THE  ART  OF 

Nothing  could  be  less  academic  than  Landon 
Ronald  ;  nothing  could  be  more  accomplished  or 
more  modern.  He  does  not  affect  the  antique  in 
any  way,  nor  believe  that  in  order  to  be  great  it  is 
necessary  to  be  old-fashioned.  He  is  as  up-to-date 
as  his  own  motor-car,  and  as  commercially  for- 
midable as  a  Jersey  city  land  agent  or  Dr.  Richter. 
He  is  entirely  typical  of  his  own  time,  as  any  man 
who  proposes  to  do  great  things  miust  be.  But  he 
is  a  product  of  something  much  greater  than  his 
own  time.  He  has  the  blood  of  a  great  race  in  his 
veins,  which,  mingling  with  his  English  blood, 
gives  to  his  wide  and  solid  ability  that  additional 
quality  of  imagination  and  emotionalism,  of  excess 
even,  that  has  carried  the  Jews  so  very  far  on  the 
two  open  roads  of  imagination  of  modern  times — 
art  and  finance.  Of  course  in  this  racial  admixture 
lie  also  such  snares  and  pitfalls  as  are  likely  to 
be  encountered  in  Landon  Ronald's  career.  The 
Englishman  in  him  desires  to  be  like  other  people; 
the  Jew  in  him  insists  on  an  individuality  of  its 
own.  The  Englishman  thinks  of  prosperity  and 
a  safe  success  ;  the  Jew  in  his  dreams  of  greater 
things,  of  a  hazardous  but  splendid  pre-eminence, 
and  devises  means  for  its  attainment.  The  English- 
man says,  '^  Be  like  other  people,  but  appear  to 
be  different"  ;  the  Jew  says,    ^'Appear  to  be  like 

[    i88   ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 

Other  people,  but  be  different."  And  in  Landon 
Ronald  the  Jewish  characteristics,  seen  in  him  at 
their  very  best,  arc  winning  everywhere  because 
they  are  the  g"reater.  They  represent  the  strono-cr, 
the  more  soaring  side  of  his  nature  ;  and 
though  their  English  partner  works  well  in  har- 
mony with  them,  it  is  the  negative  part  that  he 
plays  ;  it  is  they  who  lead  and  determine,  they 
who  are  the  dark,  unknown,  implacable  Mr. 
Jorkins,  and  the  Englishman  who  is  the  bland 
and  deprecating  Mr.  Spenlow,  of  Dickens's  famous 
partnership. 

Landon  Ronald,  though  far  from  being  the 
greatest,  is  probably  the  most  accomplished  all- 
round  musician  at  present  (to  use  a  delectable 
phrase)  before  the  public.  If  he  had  not  deter- 
mined to  be  a  great  conductor  he  would  certainly 
have  been  a  great  pianist ;  and  if  he  had  not  been 
a  great  pianist  he  would  probably  have  been  a 
great  violinist.  The  one  thing  in  music  that  he 
probably  would  not  have  been  is  a  great  com- 
poser ;  instead,  he  is  one  of  the  most  accomplished 
composers  in  his  own  line  that  one  can  imagine. 
Composition,  oddly  enough,  represents  the  com- 
mercial side  of  him.  The  shop  is  filled  with 
compositions — well  written,  always  interesting, 
always  acceptable  to  his  public  ;  and  in  the  shop 

[    189   ] 


THE  ART  OF 

he  serves  for  so  many  hours  a  day,  handing*  you 
out  songs,  overtures,  suites — what  you  will  ;  all 
honest  value  for  your  money.  But  the  dwelling- 
house  behind  the  shop  is  full  of  dreams  and  poetry. 
It  is  there  that  what  is  great  in  him  lives  and 
matures  ;  comes  to  itself  a  little  more  every  day ; 
and  comes  not  by  idle  waiting  for  the  hour,  but 
by  the  closest  study,  the  hardest  work,  the  most 
unsparing  effort.  It  is  to  that  element  in  this 
double  personality  of  Landon  Ronald  which  he 
must  pin  his  faith  ;  it  is  that  element  that  inspires 
his  orchestra  ;  it  is  that  element  which,  if  he  gives 
it  fair  play,  will  penetrate  to  a  wider  and  more 
discerning  world  of  taste  than  that  rather  inferior 
circle  that  buys,  sings,  and  adores  his  sentimental 
compositions. 

Since  he  has  had  an  orchestra  of  his  own  he 
has  advanced  enormously  in  technique  and  in 
certainty  of  touch.  No  one  can  really  judge  him 
who  does  not  hear  him  at  his  own  symphony 
concerts.  The  New  Symphony  Orchestra,  which 
he  has  made  entirely  his  own,  is  certainly  one  of 
the  best  orchestras  in  London,  and  will  in  time 
be  a  great  orchestra  ;  but  like  all  young  and 
more  or  less  struggling  organisations  it  is  often 
heard  under  disadvantages  of  place  and  rehearsal. 
You  cannot,  for  example,  judge  any  orchestra  by 

[    190  ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 

hearing  it  in  the  Albert  Hall,  where  it  and  Landon 
Ronald  perform  every  Sunday  afternoon.  Yet  his 
work  there  is  quite  admirable  ;  whatever  you  hear 
there,  whether  it  is  a  great  or  trivial  work,  you 
may  be  sure  that  it  will  be  done  with  care,  with 
trouble  taken  to  make  its  good  points  tell  and  to 
bring  out  whatever  interest  there  may  be  in  it ; 
in  a  word,  whatever  Landon  Ronald  does  he  takes 
trouble  to  do  as  well  as  he  can.  But  to  realise 
how  thoroughly  well  he  can  do  you  must  go  to 
his  symphony  concerts  at  Queen's  Hall.  There 
even  an  uninstructed  amateur  cannot  fail  to 
realise  some  of  his  most  striking  qualities — his 
splendid  grip  of  the  orchestra,  his  quite  unusual 
concentration,  and  (what  follows  from  it)  that 
almost  psychic  quality  of  magnetic  control  without 
a  little  of  which  no  one  can  be  a  good  conductor  at 
all,  but  of  which  Landon  Ronald  has  almost  as 
much  as  Nikisch  at  his  best. 

His  methods,  were  they  not  entirely  his  own, 
are  based  on  those  of  Nikisch.  He  is  frankly  an 
imitator,  but  of  the  right  kind.  He  knows  what 
he  is  trying  to  develop  in  himself,  and  whenever 
he  sees  something  that  will  help  in  that  develop- 
ment, a  missing  fragment  of  the  pattern  he  is 
building  within  himself,  he  steals,  begs,  borrows, 
or    imitates    it.    The    result    is    not  a  patchwork 

[    191    ] 


THE  ART  OF 

of  Other  men's  methods  ;  the  result  is  Landon 
Ronald,  because  the  thing  towards  which  he  is 
striving  is  not  external,  but  within  himself.  The 
two  most  typically  fine  interpretations  of  his  that 
I  know  owe  practically  nothing  to  any  conductor 
that  I  have  ever  heard  ;  they  are  the  Elgar  Sym- 
phony in  A  Flat  and  Weber's  ^^  Oberon  "  overture. 
I  have  heard  the  Elgar  Symphony  conducted 
by  Richter,  by  Wood,  by  Nikisch,  and  by  Elgar 
himself ;  but  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that 
the  broadest,  loftiest,  and  most  sympathetic 
interpretation  of  that  work  is  Landon  Ronald's. 
And  in  the  ^^  Oberon"  overture  he  displays  a 
poetic  sense  quite  startlingly  unlike  what  only 
a  casual  appreciation  might  have  led  one  to 
expect.  The  remote,  dreamy  entrance  of  the 
horns  at  the  beginning,  floating  in  as  from 
another  world,  the  light  and  rapid  series  of 
crescendi  at  the  end,  are  wonderful ;  they  have 
a  true  quality  of  fairy  music  such  as  I  have  not 
found  so  happily  achieved  in  the  rendering  of 
any  other  conductor.  His  style  is  perfectly  quiet, 
and  free  from  antics  or  disagreeable  affectations. 
Perhaps  he  is  a  little  too  much  addicted  to  an 
undulating  movement  of  the  lower  arm,  wrist, 
and  hand  invented  by  Miss  Maud  Allen  ;  but 
undoubtedly  he  means  something,  communicates 

[    192   ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 

something",  when  he  uses  it.  The  small,  dapper 
figure  expresses  little  ;  it  is  the  striking  head 
and  powerful  physiognomy,  the  burning,  com- 
manding, compelling  eyes,  the  wide  forehead, 
frowning  or  serene,  and,  above  all,  the  change- 
less, unwinking  attention  to  what  is  going  on  in 
the  world  of  sound  about  him  that  brings  his 
orchestra,  and  through  them  his  audience,  so 
completely  under  the  power  of  his  personality. 
There  is  brain  dominating  the  sentiment,  and 
intellect  controlling  the  emotion  ;  and  as  a  result 
there  are  outline  and  proportion,  those  valuable 
qualities  that  are  so  rarely  allied  with  a  tempera- 
ment so  sensitive  and  volatile  as  his. 

Emotion  is  at  once  the  power  and  the  snare 
of  a  temperament  like  this.  Emotion  is  no 
friend  to  judgment  ;  overthrows  judgment,  in 
fact,  and  drags  it  along  in  its  wake.  Landon 
Ronald  can  do  nothing  about  which  he  is  not 
enthusiastic  ;  and  as  one  cannot  always  be  in 
an  enthusiastic  mood,  he  must  either  batter  him- 
self into  enthusiasm  for  a  neutral  subject  or  do  it 
flatly  and  badly.  The  thing  that  he  does  best  is 
the  newest  and  the  latest  thini^^  that  has  attracted 
his  personality  ;  he  pours  the  whole  of  himselt 
into  every  new  mould  that  attracts  him.  His 
personality   is    thus    always    fluent    and    ductile  ; 

N  [     193     ] 


THE  ART  OF 

but  this  continual  emotional  expenditure  is  rather 
like  that  of  a  man  who  is  living  up  to  every 
penny  of  his  income  and  putting  nothing  by  in 
the  bank  against  the  day  when  the  springs  of 
emotion  shall  have  run  dry  ;  who  reinvests  his 
capital  every  day,  moreover,  with  a  little  wastage 
in  the  process.  I  do  not  say  that  at  present  this 
is  a  fault  of  Landon  Ronald's  ;  I  say  that  it  is 
a  danger.  He  will  have  to  beware  of  the  defects 
of  his  qualities  ;  of  temptation  to  deviate  from 
the  main  certainty  to  follow  the  main  chance  ; 
of  letting  his  vitality  stream  off  in  other  direc- 
tions than  from  the  end  of  his  baton  ;  of 
exercising,  in  his  impatience  with  other  people's 
incapacity,  the  commercial  side  of  his  faculties 
at  the  expense  of  the  artistic  ;  of  caring  too  much 
for  the  applause  of  the  crowd  so  long  as  it  is 
large  enough,  without  considering  of  what  ele- 
ments the  crowd  is  composed.  If  he  avoids 
these  dangers  he  will  go  far  and  fare  well,  and 
stand  at  last  in  the  company  of  the  great. 


[    194    ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 

III 

THE   INTELLECTUAL 

It  is  very  far  from  being'  a  complete  description 
of  Hans  Ricliter  as  a  conductor  to  say  that  he 
is  intellectual  ;  but  he  stands  among"  the  ex- 
ponents of  this  art  as  the  supreme  type  of 
domination  by  mind,  by  force  of  knowledge,  by 
all-embracing  comprehension  of  the  whole  matter 
in  hand.  His  work  is  done  now^  ;  he  has  lived 
to  see  the  second  generation  of  conductors  spring 
up,  and  the  art  of  which  he  is  the  living  head 
develop  possibilities  which  even  Von  Biilow  and 
Wao-ner  never  realised.  Richter  is  so  oreat  that 
he  can  never  become  obsolete  ;  but  it  is  probably 
true  that  his  method  in  any  other  hands  than  his 
own  would  already  be  regarded  as  old-fashioned, 
and  those  who  should  imitate  his  technique  would 
find  themselves  taking  up  a  wand  that  in  their 
hands  was  lifeless. 

A  great  many  adjectives  have  been  used  in  the 
attempt  to  fix  and  define  the  peculiar  quality  of 
Richter's  genius  as  a  conductor.  The  statement 
that  he  is  a  past  master  at  his  business  is  not 
sufficient  ;  for  although  his  immense   experience 

[    195   ] 


THE  ART  OF 

and  the  numberless  resources  for  meeting  an 
emergency  which  are  always  at  the  command  of 
an  ^^old  hand  "  would  in  themselves  be  enough 
to  give  him  a  unique  position  of  authority  among 
orchestral  players,  they  would  not  account  for 
his  power  over  audiences  often  ignorant  of  the 
technicalities  in  which  he  works.  It  is  his  per- 
sonality which  accounts  for  that.  There  is  a 
massive  plebeian  impassiveness  in  the  very  round 
of  his  back  that  suggests  the  peace  and  security, 
not  only  of  the  individual,  but  of  a  whole  race  of 
men.  One  might  find  grander  terms  for  it,  and 
yet  do  him  less  justice  than  by  describing  his 
principal  attribute  as  an  immense  stolidity — 
stolidity  allied  to  a  prodigious  slow  momentum 
or  power  of  going  unsensitively  on  to  the  goal 
he  has  in  view.  Thus  he  not  only  arrives  himself, 
but  he  sees  that  those  under  his  command  arrive 
with  him. 

His  technical  methods  in  conducting  are 
wonderfully  different  from  those  of  the  ultra- 
modern school,  although  to  many  of  them  he  has 
been  the  chief  inspiration.  The  large  wadded  pole 
which  he  wields  is  not  more  different  from  the 
slender  wand  of  Nikisch  than  is  the  ponderous 
stability  of  the  one  man  from  the  volatile  energy 
of  the  other.  It  is  a  saying  attributed  to  Richter 

[    196   ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 

that  he  never  makes  two  beats  where  one  will 
do,  never  beats  four  in  a  bar  where  he  can  hold 
his  rhythm  together  by  beating"  two  ;  and  this  is 
characteristic  of  the  man  and  of  his  interpreta- 
tions. This  method  means  often  the  sacrifice  of 
some  very  fine  detail,  or  rather  it  means  the 
necessity  of  trusting  for  it  entirely  to  the  player. 
For  where  a  detailed  phrase  occurs  on  the  fourth 
beat  of  a  bar  in  which  the  conductor  is  only 
beating  two  or  even  one,  it  is  impossible  that  he 
should  control  the  player's  phrasing.  But  it  also 
makes  for  a  large  simplicity  and  coherence  in 
the  outline  of  the  whole  piece  ;  and  it  is  in  the 
achievement  of  that  outline  that  Richter  is 
supreme  and  never  fails.  He  often  seems  to 
miss  fine  points,  phrases  the  value  of  which  has 
been  discovered  and  exhibited  by  conductors 
whose  minds  are  bent  on  detail  ;  but  you  never, 
in  any  performance  conducted  by  Richter,  fail 
to  obtain  a  definite  impression  of  the  composition 
as  a  whole.  Your  impression  may  be  right  or 
wrong,  or,  let  us  say,  more  right  or  less  right 
according  as  the  music  is  of  the  kind  that 
Richter  himself  understands  and  sympathises 
with  ;  but  it  will  never  fail  of  a  meaning  of  some 
kind,  consequently  it  will  never  bore  you  or 
seem  dreary  as  the  same  work  might  if  presented 

[    197   ] 


THE  ART  OF 

by  another  conductor  in  a  long  series  of  brilliant 
episodes,  each  interesting  in  itself,  but  all  re- 
maining detached  and  incoherent  to  the  end. 

Among  the  great  discoveries  made  by  Wagner 
in  the  art  of  conducting,  and  of  which  Richter 
became  undoubtedly  the  greatest  exponent,  his 
power  of  achieving  an  outline,  or  due  balance  of 
proportion,  among  the  component  parts  of  a 
movement,  is  probably  the  chief.  And  other  arts 
of  the  conductor  which  are  not  half  a  century  old 
are  the  achievement  of  a  long  ci^escendo  or  di- 
viinuendo  ;  the  building  up  of  a  long  climax  by  a 
series  of  pianissinios  working  up  to  mezzo  fortes^ 
which  thus  produce  the  effect  oi  fortissimos  with- 
out anticipating  or  forestalling  the  effect  of  the 
^x2l\\A  foi'tissinio  at  the  climax;  the  securing  of  pure 
cantahile  tone  in  the  inner  parts  of  the  orchestra  ; 
the  achievement  of  a  real  pia7iissinio  and  real 
fo7'tissimo  instead  of  the  commonplace  mezzo 
tone  of  the  pre-Wagnerian  orchestra  ;  the  effects 
to  be  obtained  from  fermata  when  prolonged  to 
the  right  extent,  and  the  melodic  use  of  many  sec- 
tions of  the  orchestra  formerly  regarded  as  valuable 
only  for  rhythmic  purposes.  These  things  are  now 
the  heritage  of  every  conductor,  but  it  is  really 
Richter  who  developed  them,  expounded  them  and 
added  them  to  the  resources  of  modern  music. 

[    i9«    ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 

Undoubtedly  the  best  place  to  study  his 
methods,  and  the  place  in  which  his  qualities 
were  most  splendidly  exhibited,  was  the  opera. 
The  **old  hand  "  reigned  there  in  all  his  glory  ; 
of  all  the  disconcerting  accidents  that  could 
happen  in  the  performance  of  an  elaborate  Wag- 
nerian opera,  there  was  not  one  that  had  not 
happened  to  him  already  ;  there  was  not  one  that 
could  disconcert  him  or  for  a  moment  disturb  his 
phlegmatic  security.  The  most  nervous  player 
could  hardly  fail  to  be  reassured  by  that  heavy, 
motionless  figure  and  grave  incurious  counte- 
nance ;  in  the  most  tempestuous  moments  of 
musical  storm  and  dramatic  commotion  he  sat  at 
his  desk  controlling  it  all,  like  an  old  scholar 
reading  in  a  lamp-lit  room.  Nothing  moved  but 
the  arm,  except  that  occasionally  the  grave 
countenance  and  beard  slowly  revolved  in  a  half- 
circle  to  left  or  right  ;  but  behind  the  spectacles 
were  eyes,  weary-looking  at  all  other  times,  that 
could  be  trained  upon  defaulting  players  with 
gimlet  sharpness.  He  was  utterly  indifferent  to 
applause  ;  at  the  end  of  a  great  performance  of 
**The  Ring"  he  would  step  down  from  his  desk, 
and  look  up  at  a  house  shouting  with  enthusiasm 
for  him  alone,  with  a  countenance  no  more  ex- 
pressive of  emotion  than  that  of  a  cow  looking 

[    199   ] 


THE  CONDUCTOR 

over  a  fence.  It  was  at  once  comic  and  grotesque 
and  sublime,  but  it  was  much  more  sublime  than 
anything  else. 

And  if  the  opera  was  his  kingdom,  Meister- 
singer  was  his  throne  in  that  kingdom.  He  is  a 
part  of  Meistersinger  as  much  as  Pogner  or 
Eva  or  Sachs  ;  when  he  took  up  the  stick  the 
whole  of  that  great  music  seemed  to  flow  out 
spontaneously,  inevitably,  like  a  banner  unrolled 
at  his  bidding.  That  was  the  place  to  study  his 
method  and  his  power  of  achieving  an  outline  ; 
that  was  the  place  to  observe  his  peculiar  methods 
of  obtaining  a  climax,  his  manner  of  treating  a 
long  crescendo  or  diminnendo  so  that  there  was 
always  a  sense  of  something  kept  in  reserve  at 
the  end  of  it ;  there,  in  a  word,  was  the  place  to 
make  a  study  of  artistic  achievement  and  mastery, 
of  what  could  be  done  by  work  and  enthusiasm 
and  simplicity  of  purpose  in  this  world  of  dissi- 
pated forces. 

The  supreme  conductor  of  the  future  will  have 
to  add  to  all  the  technical  accomplishments  and 
emotional  magnetism  of  his  age  the  dignity,  the 
simplicity,  and  the  humbleness  of  this  great  man 
Hans  Richter  ;  and  it  will  be  a  task  worth 
attempting. 

[    200   ] 


THE  MUSIC  OF 
THE  SALON 


/ 


THE  MUSIC  OF 
THE  SALON 


I 


N  attempting  to  define  the  music  of  the  Salon, 
one  must  first  realise  what  it  is  not.  It  is 
not  the  greatest  music.  The  most  sublime 
heiehts  to  which  this  art  has  reached  take  us  into 
a  region  far  different  from  that  of  the  social  world. 
The  greatest  music  is,  in  fact,  a  world  by  itself, 
and  cannot  be  used  as  mere  adornment  of  any 
part  of  life,  however  elegant  and  refined.  But 
we  do  not  always  dwell  on  the  mountain  tops  ; 
some  of  us,  in  fact,  never  get  there  at  all,  but 
walk  along  happily  enough  in  the  valleys,  and 
are  content  to  see  the  cold  snowy  peaks  soaring 
into  the  blue  above  us.  It  is  one  of  the  very 
human  attributes  of  art  that  it  provides  for  us  on 
the  smaller  as  well  as  on  the  greater  scale  ;  and 
although  all  great  art  is,  of  course,  good  art,  all 
good  art  is  not  necessarily  great  art. 

That  is  the  first  point,  that  in  considering  the 

[   203   ] 


THE  MUSIC  OF 

music  of  the  Salon  we  are  not  necessarily  con- 
sidering the  greatest  kind  of  music,  although  we 
find  in  it  some  of  the  most  perfect  music  that  has 
ever  been  written  in  any  form  or  kind  ;  the  scale, 
that  is  to  say,  is  a  small  scale.  Now  just  as  there 
are  plants  that  live  and  flourish  in  a  certain 
atmosphere  and  are  found  only  in  those  parts  of 
the  world  where  the  temperature  never  rises  or 
falls  below  the  extremes  within  which  they  can 
flourish,  so  there  is  a  certain  kind  of  music  that 
can  be  heard  to  advantage  only  in  a  certain 
human  temperature  or  atmosphere.  We  are  all 
familiar  with  many  such  kinds  of  music.  There  is 
the  music  that  needs  a  cathedral,  a  vast  place  of 
shadows  and  echoes,  and  the  accompaniment  of 
solemn  rites  and  religious  ceremonies — the  music 
that  sounds  sublime  in  these  conditions,  and 
which  makes  no  effect  whatever  if  these  condi- 
tions are  wanting.  There  is  the  music  which 
needs  the  accompaniment  of  the  stage  and  scenery 
and  action  and  visual  illusion — which  is  a  part  of 
these  things,  and  which  is  incomplete  without 
them.  There  is  the  music  for  the  solitary  player, 
which  yields  its  greatest  delight  to  the  patient 
scholar  who  spends  long  hours  in  unravelling  its 
mysteries.  There  is  the  music  for  the  chamber, 
where   the   association   of  two    or    three    fellow- 

[   204  ] 


THE  SALON 

artists  in  the  task  produces  an  atmosphere  un- 
attainable elsewhere,  and  without  which  the 
music  itself  would  he  a  dumb  and  lifeless  thing. 
There  is  music  for  outdoor  festivals,  with  sun- 
shine and  great  moving  crowds  and  banners 
streaming  in  the  wind  and  troops  marching  with 
glittering  arms.  There  is  music  which  a  lover 
can  sing  alone  to  his  mistress,  and  music  that  a 
mother  can  sing  to  her  child.  There  are  songs 
which  a  singer  can  sing  to  a  vast  crowd,  and 
other  songs,  expressive  of  some  national  or  uni- 
versal theme,  which  the  crowd  itself  can  sing. 

Hardly  any  one  of  these  kinds  of  music  will 
bear  transposition  from  its  own  suitable  atmo- 
sphere without  damage  and  loss  of  effect.  In 
other  words,  nearly  all  music  is  to  some  extent 
dependent  on  environment,  and  no  music  is  so 
dependent  on  environment  as  that  which  I  have 
called  the  music  of  the  Salon — music,  that  is  to 
say,  that  is  suitable  for  intimate  gatherings  of 
people  who  are  met,  not  for  any  great  serious 
purpose,  but  for  the  cultivation  and  enjoyment 
of  the  more  elegant  sides  of  life  ;  delicate,  subtle 
music  designed  for  the  pleasure  of  the  polite 
world,  and  to  satisfy  the  sense  of  beauty  of  a 
highly  civilised  and,  if  you  like,  a  slightlv  deca- 
dent society, 

[   205   ] 


THE  MUSIC  OF 

For  music,  let  us  remember,  like  all  pure  art, 
has  no  concern  with  ethics  or  morals  ;  it  is  a 
universal  art,  it  follows  us  and  accompanies  us 
everywhere  through  life.  Even  if  we  do  not  carry 
it  within  ourselves,  we  still  find  it  wherever  we 
go,  simply  because  it  is  everywhere  and  adapted 
to  everything.  It  is  in  the  clouds  and  on  the 
mountain  tops,  speaking  there  to  us  in  awful 
voices  like  the  thunders  of  Sinai  ;  it  is  in  the 
valleys,  in  the  song  of  birds  and  the  soft  rush 
of  murmuring  streams  ;  it  is  in  the  surges  of  the 
sea,  on  the  empty  moorland,  by  the  cottage  fire- 
side, in  the  palace  ball-room.  And  it  is  in  the 
Salon,  taking  its  place  amid  the  intrigues  of  the 
idle  world,  the  talk  of  politicians,  the  whispers 
of  diplomacy,  and  the  voice  of  love. 


II 

Let  us  consider  this  music  of  the  Salon  from 
two  points  of  view  :  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  hearer  of  the  music,  and  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  maker  of  it.  The  music  of  the 
Salon  is  an  accompaniment  to,  and  an  adornment 
of  something  else.  It  is  not  the  primary  object 
which   has   brought   its   hearers    together.    They 

[    206   ] 


THE  SALON 

have  come  to  see  each  other,  to  shine  and  be 
shone  upon,  to  cultivate  the  more  refined  and 
subtle  pleasures  ;  above  all,  to  gratify  the  pride 
of  the  eye  and  the  joy  of  the  senses.  Beautiful 
colours  and  beautiful  forms  must  be  there  to 
please  the  eye  ;  beautiful  sounds  must  be  there 
to  please  the  ear.  But  as  the  essence  of  the  Salon, 
after  it  had  emerged  from  its  more  elementary 
condition,  was  that  all  these  other  tastes  were 
dominated  by  wit  and  intellect,  so  in  matters  of 
art  higher  taste  and  higher  discrimination  came 
to  be  exercised.  In  short,  the  music  of  the  Salon, 
while  not  being  of  the  deepest  or  the  greatest, 
had  to  be  of  the  best. 

There  is  only  one  country  in  which  this  kind 
of  light  perfection  has  been  consistently  cultivated 
and  enjoyed,  and  that  is  France  ;  so  it  is  no 
wonder  that  Paris,  which  saw  the  Salon  in  its 
perfection,  saw  also  the  production  of  by  far  the 
greatest  successes  in  Salon  music.  The  Parisian 
loves  to  disguise  all  laborious  processes,  loves  to 
pretend  that  the  efforts  of  his  brain  and  all  his 
most  arduous  toil  are  trifles  thrown  off  into  the 
air  in  an  idle  moment.  In  music  especially  the 
French  school  has  tended  more  and  more  to  sub- 
stitute form  for  substance,  to  cultivate  perfection 
of   manner    rather    than    significance   of   matter. 

[    207    ] 


THE  MUSIC  OF 

The  products  of  French  genius  must  always  be 
well  dressed  ;  anything  uncouth,  anything  too 
great  or  too  spontaneous  to  fit  into  any  of  the 
ready-made  forms  of  art  is  intolerable  there.  And 
in  literature  and  in  music  both,  as  the  substance 
of  what  the  French  people  have  to  say  has  become 
smaller  and  smaller,  so  has  the  form  and  manner 
of  its  utterance  become  more  and  more  polished, 
more  and  more  delicate,  more  and  more  perfect 
in  finish. 

Take  the  work  of  Debussy,  as  an  example 
which  will  occur  to  every  one.  I  think  it  probable 
that  no  composer  with  so  splendid  a  technical 
equipment  ever  had  so  little  to  say.  But  what  is 
important  about  Debussy  is  that  what  little  he 
has  to  say  is  said  in  absolute  perfection  of  form. 
One  of  his  pieces  is  like  a  miniature  painting  on 
ivory  ;  there  is  not  a  line,  however  trifling  and 
delicate,  that  is  not  as  carefully  studied  as  any- 
thing in  the  whole  composition  ;  and  not  a  line 
that  could  be  otherwise  than  it  is  without  loss  of 
effect.  Here,  of  course,  you  have  the  ideal  con- 
ditions for  Salon  music  ready  made. 

But  the  perfection  of  form  and  finish,  although 
they  are  the  first  essentials  of  the  music  of  the 
Salon,  are  not  by  any  means  the  whole  of  it.  We 
desire,  in  the  polite  and  artificial  world  in  which 

[   208   ] 


THE  SALON 

we  hear  it,  to  be  moved,  to  be  interested,  to  have 
our  emotions  even  agitated  ;  but  not  too  much. 
We  must  not  be  too  much  moved,  nothing"  must 
occur  to  disturb  the  bright  and  pretty  surface  of 
the  artistic  Hfe  of  the  hour.  Smiles  there  may  be, 
but  not  loud  and  side-shaking  laughter  ;  there 
may  even  be  tears,  but  the  utmost  delicacy  is  re- 
quired in  evoking  those  tears.  For  tears  which 
look  beautiful  when  standing  unshed  in  starry  eyes 
cease  to  be  beautiful  when  they  brim  over  and 
run  down  powdered  cheeks.  Therefore  the  tears 
may  rise,  but  they  must  not  be  allowed  to  fall. 

All  this  is  but  another  way  of  saying  that  the 
music  of  the  Salon  must  not  stir  us  too  deeply. 
It  must  not  appeal  to  the  elemental  and  really 
vital  things  in  us  ;  we  are  not  to  be  harrowed  or 
ravaged  by  storms  of  passion,  or  filled  with  the 
desolation  of  great  tragedies,  or  raised  to  states  of 
high  exaltation.  The  music  of  the  theatre  and  of 
the  church  and  of  the  orchestra  may  do  all  that, 
but  in  the  music  of  the  Salon  we  must  not  experi- 
ence anything  too  deeply.  We  must,  in  short,  be 
onlookers  at  life,  and  not  partakers  in  it.  We 
want  emotions  represented  to  us,  but  we  do  not 
want  to  share  them  ;  we  must  be  like  people 
sitting  in  a  balcony  watching  the  crowds  march 
by,  and  listening  to  the  laughter  and  the  jests  and 
o  [   209  ] 


THE  MUSIC  OF 

the  bustle  and  the  strife,  but  we  ourselves  must 
sit  apart  from  it  all,  where  the  dust  does  not  reach 
us,  nor  the  din  deafen  us,  nor  the  mire  in  the 
streets  splash  our  immaculate  condition. 

Music  has  a  singular  power  of  giving*  us  this 
sense  of  isolation  from  what  we  are  contem- 
plating ;  take,  for  example,  a  waltz  of  Johann 
Strauss's  and  a  waltz  of  Chopin's.  The  music  of 
Strauss  suggests  waltzing  pure  and  simple,  it 
excites  the  sense  of  rhythm  in  us,  it  makes  us 
want  to  dance,  it  is  a  kind  of  elemental  appeal  to 
set  our  pulses  and  our  feet  moving  to  its  rhythm 
— and  that  is  all.  Set  the  orchestra  playing  such  a 
waltz  in  suitable  circumstances,  and  you  will  find 
the  effect  of  the  music  will  be  to  break  down 
whatever  artificial  conditions  may  be  existing, 
and  to  set  people  dancing ;  simply  dancing, 
and  nothing  more.  Now  that  is  elementary  music, 
which  makes  a  direct  appeal  to  us,  and  summons 
us  to  experience  something.  Take,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  waltz  of  Chopin's.  It  does  not  make  us 
want  to  dance,  but  it  suddenly  and  powerfully 
reveals  a  scene  of  dancing.  It  is  like  a  curtain 
drawn  back,  through  which  we  have  a  vision  of  a 
crowded  and  glittering  ballroom,  burning  with  all 
the  feverish  gaiety  and  strange,  half-spiritual,  half- 
sensual  exaltation  of  the  dance  ;  and  we,  sitting 

[    2IO    ] 


THE  SALON 

apart  in  our  alcove,  undisturbed  by  these  passions, 
nevertheless  see  them  at  work  in  all  the  glory  of 
colour  and  rhythm  and  movement  ;  and  all  the 
world  seems  to  shine  with  the  glitter,  and  shake 
with  the  rhythm  of  energy  and  laughter  and  love. 
Of  course  the  music  that  can  show  us  scenes  like 
this  is  far  greater  than  the  music  which  can  merely 
excite  us,  all  unconscious  of  their  significance,  to 
take  part  in  them  ;  yet  the  one  music  is  experi- 
ence at  first  hand,  and  the  other,  the  music  of 
Chopin,  the  music  of  the  Salon,  is  experience 
at  second  hand.  We  observe  emotion  at  work, 
but  we  do  not  ourselves  experience  it  too  deeply. 


Ill 

So  much  for  the  music  of  the  Salon  from  the 
hearer's  point  of  view.  We  will  now  consider  it 
from  the  other  side,  the  side  of  the  maker  of  the 
music.  Now  the  music  which  I  am  trying  to 
describe  possesses  a  definitive  quality  not  so 
much  because  of  the  deliberate  intention  of  the 
composer,  but  because  of  the  perhaps  accidental 
presence  in  it  of  the  essential  character  which  I 
have  indicated.  I  shall  try  to  make  some  broad 
classifications  of  composers  and  schools  of  com- 

[     2"     ] 


THE  MUSIC  OF 

position  that  have  produced  the  music  of  the 
Salon.  But  they  can  only  be  very  broad  classifica- 
tions, which  will  include  endless  contradictions 
and  exceptions.  Handel,  for  example,  who  was 
very  far  from  being*  a  Salon  composer,  has  pro- 
duced in  some  of  his  suites,  notably  that  one 
containing"  the  air  and  variations  which  have, 
owing  to  an  absurd  and  untrue  anecdote,  been 
nicknamed  ^^The  Harmonious  Blacksmith," 
some  of  the  most  perfect  Salon  pieces  in  existence. 
In  the  same  way,  a  few  suites  of  Bach,  the  music 
of  some  of  the  old  Italian  masters,  a  great 
deal  of  Mozart  and  Haydn,  and  a  good  deal  of 
Weber — these  are  all  Salon  music,  and  yet 
they  are  accidental  and  exceptional,  and  have 
not  come  from  the  true  sources  of  the  music  of 
the  Salon. 

Let  me  give  you  an  instance  how  the  same 
music,  and  the  same  musical  idea,  can  be  pre- 
sented both  in  the  most  magnificent  and  lofty 
form  of  universal  music,  and  in  the  elegant  and 
polished  miniature  of  the  music  of  the  Salon. 
I  suppose  every  reader  of  this  page  knows  well 
the  great  love  duet  in  the  second  act  of  Tristan 
und  Isolde,  You  have  there  a  piece  of  music 
in  which  the  limits  of  artistic  expression  are 
reached — music    to    which    we    do    not    merely 

[     212    ] 


THE  SALON 

listen,  but  in  which  we  live  ;  music  which  does 
not  leave  us  to  contemplate  life,  but  which  drags 
us  in  our  persons  and  experience  to  the  very 
portals  of  heaven  and  hell.  And  now  take 
Wagner's  song,  Ti'aiune^  the  same  theme,  the 
same  music,  but  robbed  of  all  its  terrible  power 
to  sear  and  ravage  our  souls,  and  presented 
merely  as  a  delicate,  languorous,  delicious  trifle, 
to  which  we  can  listen  with  mere  pleasure. 
The  sting  and  the  terror  have  been  taken  out 
of  it ;  it  has  been  reduced  in  scale  ;  it  has  become 
a  charming  picture,  dreamy  and  elegant  and 
unreal  as  a  landscape  by  Watteau,  instead  of 
being  a  veritable  arena  in  which  we  struggle 
with  love  and  with  death.  In  other  words,  it 
has  become  a  piece  of  Salon  music. 

When  we  come  to  consider  the  source  of  this 
music  we  find,  as  I  have  said,  that  the  French 
have  contributed  more  largely  to  it  than  any 
other  nationality.  The  seriousness  and  gravity  of 
the  German  genius  has  prevented  it,  as  a  whole, 
from  achieving  the  lightness  and  elegance  neces- 
sary in  Salon  music.  Seriousness  is  apt  to  break 
through  at  any  moment.  In  German  music, 
even  when  an  attempt  at  lightness  is  made,  we 
are  never  really  secure  from  life  and  seriousness  ; 
the    thin    ice    of    artificiality    on    which    we    are 

[   213   ] 


THE  MUSIC  OF 

skating  is  apt  to  bend  and  crack,  and  we  are 
suddenly  plunged,  with  all  our  finery  and  flimsy 
elegance,  for  a  souse  in  the  cold  realities  of  life. 
Ernst  ist  das  Leben^  said  Goethe,  and  it  has 
been  the  unwritten  text  of  nearly  all  the  music 
that  has  made  Germany  glorious.  The  result  of 
this  high  seriousness  is  that  when  an  atmosphere 
of  lighter  emotion  is  sought  for  it  is  apt  to 
degenerate  into  the  other  extreme,  and  become 
mawkish  and  sentimental.  The  voice  of  a  stout 
German  Geheimrath  calling  to  his  little  maiden 
to  come  into  his  arms  and  his  great  heart, 
because  earth  and  sea  and  heaven  are  all  melting 
away  together  for  love,  which  represents  too 
truly  much  of  the  lighter  side  of  the  romantic 
movement  in  Germany,  can  hardly  be  described 
as  Salon  music.  It  is  rather  the  romance  of  the 
beer-garden  and  the  tobacconist's  counter.  It  is, 
however,  but  the  reflex  of  that  deep  reality  that 
we  know  and  worship  in  German  music,  the 
reality  that  has  given  us  Bach  and  Beethoven 
and  Brahms  and  Wagner. 

There  are,  however,  two  Gernian  composers  who 
have  written  what  I  would  call  Salon  music  on 
a  considerable  scale — I  mean  Mendelssohn  and 
Schumann  ;  and  I  would  add  a  foreign  composer 
whose   music   is  closely  allied   with    that   of   the 

[   214  ] 


THE  SALON 

German  school — Grieg.  Of  coursethe  whole  of  the 
literatureof  music  represented  by  the  German  licdcr 
school,  or  a  great  part  of  it,  might  be  described 
as  Salon  music,  yet  I  think  that  even  here  a  great 
part  of  the  songs  of  Schubert  in  one   style,  and 
Hugo  Wolff  in  another,  do  not  quite  conform  to 
our  standards  ;  for  small  as  they  are  in  scale  and 
design,  they  take  us  often  into  a  great  reality  of 
life,  and  not  by  any  means  into  a  mere  sheltered 
and   adorned  corner  of  it.    But  Schumann,   who 
could  be  great  and  serious,   could  also  be  slight 
and  perfect,  and  much  of  his  pianoforte  music  has 
that  note  of  wistfulness,  of  things  felt  deeply  for 
the  moment  and   forgotten   again   presently  ;  of 
concentration  on  the  hour  and  the  person  of  the 
hour,    which  is  only,  maybe,  one  of  the  forms  of 
mental  dissipation.    For  just  as  the  most  charming 
people  who  are  fickle  and  inconstant  prettily  ex- 
cuse themselves  by  saying  that  they  are  always 
constant  to  themselves,   so  in   the  world   of  the 
Salon  the  thing  of  the  moment  is  the  thing  of  im- 
portance, the  person  of  the  moment  is  the  person 
who   matters.    There  is  immense  concentration, 
therefore,  on  the  person  of  the  moment,  but  alas  ! 
there  are  so  many  moments  and  so  many  people, 
and    concentration    upon   each    of  them    in    turn 
becomes,  in  short,  dissipation. 

[    213   ] 


THE  MUSIC  OF 


IV 

The  music  of  Mendelssohn  in  its  relation  to  the 
music  of  the  Salon  stands  rather  in  a  department 
by  itself.  I  would  describe  it  rather  as  represent- 
ing the  music  of  the  Salon  of  Young  People.  It 
is  the  ante-room  of  that  greater  and  more  im- 
portant world  in  which,  beneath  the  surface  of 
smiles  and  civilities  and  gaieties,  life  itself  begins 
to  burn  and  work  within  us.  Mendelssohn,  I 
think,  has  suffered  some  injustice  at  the  hands 
of  modern  criticism.  As  we  know,  he  made  as 
great  a  reputation  in  his  lifetime  as  any  musician 
in  history,  but  much  of  his  music  has  not  with- 
stood the  test  of  time.  Its  great  reputation  sur- 
vived during  the  mid-Victorian  era,  but  later  it 
began  to  be  scrutinised  rather  ruthlessly,  and 
much  of  it  could  not  stand  the  critical  test  applied 
by  the  awakened  critical  interest  that  followed  the 
advent  of  Wagner.  The  pendulum  swung,  in  fact, 
a  little  too  far  the  other  way,  and  Mendelssohn  was 
for  some  years  accorded  a  little  less  than  his  due. 
Now,  however,  criticism  is  more  just  to  him — more 
just  really  than  it  was  in  the  great  unquestioning 
acceptance  of  him  in  the  days  of  his  supremacy  ; 

[   216  ] 


THE  SALON 

as  discriminating  praise  must  always  be  more  just 
than  mere  uncritical  adulation.  What  Mendelssohn 
really  did  was  to  bring*  music,  which  had  hitherto 
been  rather  a  tremendous  and  lofty  and  isolated 
thing,  into  the  home,  to  make  it  a  domestic  thing  ; 
to  apply  a  sense  of  beauty,  which  had  hitherto 
been  regarded  as  an  attribute  of  music  written  only 
on  a  great  and  difficult  scale,  to  music  that  was  not 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  schoolroom  Miss  to  play 
upon  the  piano  at  home.  The  ^' Songs  without 
Words  "  was  a  really  epoch-making  work.  Those 
little  pieces,  each  perfect  in  form,  each  a  complete 
treatment  of  some  little  theme,  and  many  of  them 
charmingly  instinct  with  atmosphere  and  colour, 
were  like  nothing  else  that  had  ever  been  written 
before.  They  were  tender  and  emotional  and 
romantic,  and,  after  the  austerer  music  of  the 
preceding  age,  they  brought  poetry  and  romance 
into  the  parlour  piano,  as  it  were,  just  as  the  breeze 
will  blow  the  scents  of  roses  and  honeysuckle 
through  the  open  window. 

You  may  say  that  it  is  derogatory  to  Mendels- 
sohn to  call  his  music  domestic  music,  and  point 
to  his  popular  oratorios,  his  symphonies,  his  can- 
tatas, and  other  orchestral  works.  Well,  I  can  only 
say  that  I  do  not  agree.  The  test  of  any  artist  is 
what  he  does  better  than  any  one  else,  what  he 

[  217  ] 


THE  MUSIC  OF 

does  perfectly  ;  those  are  the  things  that  are  really 
characteristic  of  him.  Now  Mendelssohn  never 
did  a  great  thing  perfectly.  Bach  and  Handel 
wrote  infinitely  finer  oratorios  than  he,  Beethoven 
wrote  far  finer  symphonies,  Schubert  wrote  far 
more  beautiful  songs,  Schumann  wrote  greater 
pianoforte  works  on  the  larger  scale.  Mendels- 
sohn did  small  things  perfectly,  and  the  small 
perfect  things  that  he  did  have  all  this  intimate 
atmosphere  which  I  have  associated  with  Salon 
music.  Now  examine  these  works  of  Mendels- 
sohn which  I  have  thought  perfect  and  perfectly 
characteristic  of  him,  and  which  I  call  intimate 
and  domestic.  What  is  it  that  makes  them  so?  In 
what  way  do  they  differ  from  the  works,  say,  of 
Bach,  which  fill  one  with  lofty  ideas  and  have  an 
atmosphere  of  religion  and  remoteness  ?  To  begin 
with,  their  beauty  is  all  of  a  very  obvious  kind  and 
on  a  very  small  scale.  Bach's  great  and  remote 
supremacy  rests  partly  on  the  fact  that  he  never 
tried  to  express  emotion  directly  in  music ;  he  made 
grand  and  beautiful  things,  and  the  emotion  found 
its  own  way  naturally  into  them.  In  Mendelssohn 
the  emotion  is  always  very  near  the  surface,  if  not 
actually  on  the  surface.  Very  often  his  music  has 
much  in  common  with  the  artless,  self-conscious 
decorations  of  the  mid-Victorian  drawing-room. 

[   218  ] 


THE  SALON 

One  associates  it  with  antimacassars  and  crewel- 
work,  and  those  wonderful  ornaments  unhappily 
protected  from  decay  by  being  kept  under  glass 
shades.  Yet  these  things,  which  represented 
merely  the  transient  taste  of  a  period,  have 
vanished,  and  still  Mendelssohn's  music  remains  ; 
and  it  remains,  and  will  remain,  because  beneath 
the  transient  external  form  of  its  art  it  contained 
the  true  spirit  of  the  fireside,  of  the  drawing-room, 
of  the  home.  The  English  home  has  much  to 
answer  for  in  our  aesthetic  life  ;  but  let  us  not  be 
too  ready  to  laugh  even  at  its  errors.  I  deem  that 
person  fortunate  who  was  brought  up  on  nothing 
worse  than  Mendelssohn  ;  more  than  that,  I  deem 
unfortunate  him  who  had  not  in  his  childhood  and 
youth,  while  his  tastes  were  supple  and  simple,  the 
benefit  of  an  enjoyment  from  music  of  a  kind  which 
perhaps  a  later  and  more  educated  taste  would 
have  made  wearisome  and  intolerable  to  him. 
There  is  an  age  for  everything  ;  a  time  which  is 
the  right  time  for  appreciating  and  enjoying  certain 
things.  I,  for  my  part,  am  glad  that  I  was  brought 
up  on  many  things  which  in  later  life  I  would  not 
deliberately  choose  for  myself.  I  do  not  care  to 
hear  very  much  of  Mendelssohn's  music  now,  and 
I  would  not  choose  to  hang  woollen  antimacassars 
on   the    backs    of  my   chairs  ;   but    I    would    not 

[   219   ] 


THE  MUSIC  OF 

willingly  be  without  remembrance  of  a  world  in 
which  both  were  familiar  to  me. 

If  you  will  take,  then,  the  ^^  Songs  without 
Words  "  as  the  supreme  expression  of  what  I  call 
elementary  Salon  music,  you  will  find  them  inter- 
esting in  a  new  way.  They  are  in  music  what 
the  poems  of  Longfellow  are  in  literature  ;  they 
raise  no  unpleasant  or  premature  questions  ;  they 
do  not  ravage  the  soul  with  emotion  ;  there 
are  tears  in  them,  but  they  are  the  tears  of 
romantic  adolescence  ;  they  are  soon  wiped  away. 
There  is  beauty  in  them,  but  it  is  not  beauty  of  a 
disturbing  kind  ;  it  is  the  beauty  of  a  little  story, 
pretty  or  gay  or  sad.  It  is  a  little  story  after  all  ; 
if  it  is  cheerful,  it  leaves  one  cheerful  too  ;  if  it  is 
sad,  well,  it  never  really  happened,  and  we  need 
not  be  sorry  about  it.  Above  all,  this  music  has 
the  power  which  certain  perfumes  have  to  convey 
memory  and  association.  That  is  a  very  precious 
quality,  especially  in  the  music  of  the  home  and 
of  the  Salon,  and  for  that  reason  the  music  of 
Mendelssohn  with  its  formal  melodies,  its  simple 
and  definite  rhythms,  its  sweetness,  its  pretty 
colours,  its  tenderness  and  femininity,  and  simple, 
if  somewhat  vapid  wholesomeness,  is  the  best 
example  I  know  of  this  music,  the  music  of  social 
adolescence.  Remember,  it  is  polite  adolescence  ; 

[  220  ] 


THE  SALON 

and  picture  a  drawincr-room  full  of  intelligent 
young"  people  on  the  threshold  of  life,  Backjhchc 
with  their  hair  very  neatly  plaited  and  tied  up 
with  large,  stiff,  crinkly  bows  ;  and  young  men, 
a  little  awkward  perhaps,  but  charged  like  electric 
machines  with  feeling,  ready  to  melt  at  a  glance, 
and  to  discharge  their  emotions,  also  like  electric 
machines,  at  the  first  contact  with  an  opposite 
pole.  All  that  was  expressed  by  Mendelssohn 
with  the  most  perfect  finish  and  the  most  delicious 
and  untroubled  melody  ;  and  in  music  of  a  kind  so 
entirely  decorative  and  pleasant,  that  it  is  entitled 
to  be  ranked  with  the  best  music  of  the  Salon. 

Germany,  I  think,  has  contributed  little  else  to 
this  music.  Every  great  composer  has,  of  course, 
written  one  or  more  pieces  that  entirely  conform 
to  my  standard,  for  such  broad  rules  that  I  have 
been  laying  down  must  necessarily  bristle  with 
exceptions.  Of  other  nationalities  that  produce 
music,  Russia  has  contributed  practically  nothing 
to  the  music  of  the  Salon.  Just  as  seriousness 
lies  too  closely  below  the  surface  of  German  music, 
so  a  strain  of  savagery  lies  too  closely  behind  the 
Russian  music.  If  the  German  is  banished  from 
the  Salon  because  he  is  not  amusing,  the  Russian 
must  be  banished  because  he  is  not  safe.  We  may 
dress  him  up  in  the  most  modern  and  fashionable 

[     221     ] 


THE  MUSIC  OF 

garments,  and  he  may  bow  and  smile  and  languish 
with  the  best  of  us,  but  at  a  word  or  a  look  or  a 
touch  the  savage  may  leap  forth  and  break  into 
wild  cries,  and  the  spirit  of  savage  nature  be  let 
loose  in  your  pretty  drawing-room.  The  old  say- 
ing, ^^  Scratch  a  Russian  and  you  will  find  a  Tar- 
tar," can  here  be  most  aptly  applied  ;  for  although 
people  do  not  scratch  in  Salons,  still,  one  never 
knows  ;  an  accident  might  happen,  and  a  Tartar 
would  be  unendurable  in  our  world  of  epigrams 
and  compliments  and  leashed  emotions.  Tschai- 
kovsky  is  probably,  if  1  may  so  put  it,  the  best- 
bred,  the  most  civilised  of  Russian  composers  ; 
yet  even  Tschaikovsky  is  hardly  safe,  although  he 
has  written  examples  of  the  perfect  Salon  music. 
His  song,  A^//r  7uer  die  Sehiisucht  kennt^  is  an 
almost  perfect  example  ;  yet  for  him  too  life, 
when  it  was  not  savage,  was  grave  and  earnest. 
But  his  contribution  to  the  music  of  the  Salon  form 
the  exceptions  which  prove  my  rule  about  Russia. 
The  music  of  England  again,  although  full  of  ex- 
ceptions in  this  particular,  has  never  been  really 
rich  in  music  of  this  polite  and  polished  type. 
English  music  at  its  best  has  either  been  gay 
music,  music  for  out-of-doors,  the  music  of  the 
meadow  and  the  village  green,  or,  in  its  later 
manifestations,  music  of  a  deep  and  serious  type 

[    222    ] 


THE  SALON 

that  has  no  place  amid  the  effervescent  emotions 
of  the  Salon.  There  are,  in  my  opinion,  only  two 
schools  of  modern  music  of  any  importance — the 
schools  of  France  and  of  England — and  by  far  the 
most  important  and  serious  of  the  two  is  the 
British  school  ;  for  this  very  reason,  that  the 
modern  English  composers  are  working  with 
music  as  with  life  itself,  Avhile  the  French  are  en- 
gaged in  perfect  and  consummate  trifling,  and  at 
the  best  in  the  production  of  Salon  music. 


It  remained  for  Poland,  that  strange  troubled 
borderland  of  a  country  which  is  neither  savage 
nor  civilised,  but  has  imported  more  savagery  into 
civilisation  and  more  civilisation  into  savagery  than 
any  other  nationality,  to  provide  the  perfect  and 
masterly  examples  of  the  music  of  the  Salon.  In  the 
music  of  Chopin  we  have  a  quite  different  atmo- 
sphere from  the  music  of  Mendelssohn  or  Schu- 
mann. Gone  is  the  period  of  adolescence  ;  gone  are 
the  pretty  romantic  tales,  the  trifling  ideas,  the 
untroubling  occupations  and  the  sheltered  home; 
we  are  plunged  into  the  great  world,  the  social 
world  where  men  and  women  meet  and  mix  on 

[   223  ] 


THE  MUSIC  OF 

their  own  responsibility,  to  their  own  advantage, 
at  their  own  risk.  The  music  of  Chopin  is  the 
supreme  expression  of  that  human  atmosphere 
that  is  contained  in  the  polite  world  where,  al- 
though the  elemental  influences  are  always  at 
work,  their  results  are  hidden  beneath  a  polite 
and  formal  mask.  We  have  moved  on  from  the 
drawing-room  trifles  of  Mendelssohn,  from  the 
pretty  atmosphere  of  bowers  and  arbours,  al- 
though w^e  have  not  perhaps  reached  the  real  pro- 
fundities of  existence.  We  are  in  the  transition 
world  that  is  bounded  by  outward  politeness  and 
decorum.  The  particular  qualities  that  Chopin's 
music  developed  would  have  been  impossible  had 
he  lived  anywhere  else  than  in  Paris  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  His  passionate  Polish  tempera- 
ment provided  him  with  a  fire,  an  elemental  force 
that  needed  to  be  tamed  and  subdued  within 
bounds  of  some  kind  before  it  would  successfully 
achieve  formal  expression.  He  lived  in  a  world 
strangely  compounded  for  himself  of  physical 
weakness  and  suffering,  of  unbounded  adulation 
and  praise,  of  hard  work  and  great  human  dis- 
tractions, and  yet  with  a  singular  remoteness  and 
apathy  in  his  own  attitude  towards  it  all.  He  was 
a  great  artist,  a  supremely  great  musician,  and 
he  was  as  incapable  of  the  mere  graceful  pretti- 

[   224  ] 


THE  SALON 

ness  of  Mendelssohn  as  of  the  calm  passionless 
majesty  of  Bach.  There  are  fever  and  emotion  in 
every  note  that  he  wrote  ;  real  fever  and  real 
emotion,  but  fever  and  emotion  produced  by 
causes  that  the  philosopher  would  hardly  think 
worthy  to  produce  so  much  unrest.  Yet,  as  you 
know,  we  cannot  measure  the  degree  of  people's 
suffering  by  the  importance  or  reality  of  the  cause 
that  makes  them  suffer.  People  will  fret  them- 
selves into  fevers  over  an  imaginary  wrong  or  an 
imaginary  injury  just  as  though  it  were  a  real 
one,  and  their  sufferings  are  not  any  the  less 
acute  for  being  caused  by  fancy. 

In  the  same  way,  the  Salon,  the  polite  world  of 
the  clever  and  the  witty,  and  the  world  of  amuse- 
ment, is  as  real  a  theatre  for  passions  and  storms 
as  any  other  ;  and  it  is  these  passions  and  these 
storms  that  are  reflected  in  the  music  of  Chopin. 
Into  his  own  native  dance  rhythms  he  crowded  a 
sense  of  all  the  emotions  that  are  associated  with 
beauty  and  youth  and  gaiety  and  excitement. 
His  waltzes,  as  I  have  said,  are  not  things  that 
any  one  can  waltz  to,  they  are,  rather,  great  feverish 
pictures  of  the  ballroom  with  its  lights  and  its 
movements  and  its  music  and  its  rhythm,  and 
the  suggestion  of  melanchoh'  that  always  under- 
lies any  formal  gaiety. 

P  [   225   ] 


THE  MUSIC  OF 

In  Chopin,  too,  we  have  the  most  splendid  and 
serious  development  which  the  music  of  the  Salon 
is  ever  likely  to  reach.  It  is  serious  because  it  was 
all  serious  to  him  ;  his  life  is  in  it,  and  all  his  pain 
and  suffering ;  but  he  polished  it  and  made  it 
beautiful  for  us.  In  him  also  we  have  the  supreme 
example  of  the  terrible  toll  which  society  takes  of 
those,  at  once  its  darlings  and  its  victims,  who 
keep  it  entertained  and  amused.  This  social  and 
polite  world  of  people  who  amuse  themselves  has 
really  nothing  to  do  with  the  artist ;  its  aims  are 
not  his  aims,  its  ways  are  not  his  ways,  and  its 
rewards  are  not  his  rewards.  Yet  in  every  artist's 
soul  there  is  a  need  and  desire  for  the  things  of 
life  that  society  can  give  ;  and  therefore  it  gives 
them  to  him,  and  receives  payment  in  the  terrible 
coin  of  his  life.  Every  bar  of  Chopin's  music  is  for 
me  haunted  by  the  picture  of  that  frail  figure 
racked  with  pain,  a  mass  of  jangled  nerves, 
troubled  and  tormented  to  the  verge  of  madness, 
who  was  the  idol  of  the  Paris  drawing-rooms  of 
his  day.  Every  note  that  he  wrote,  he  wrote  with 
blood  and  tears  ;  yet  there  are  no  wounds  visible 
on  the  fair  body  of  his  art,  and  the  tears  are 
hidden  beneath  smiles  and  graces.  It  is  the  rule 
of  the  game,  it  is  the  condition  of  the  polite  and 
well-bred  world  to  keep  pain  and  suffering  hidden, 

[   226   ] 


THE  SALON 

and  to  smile  and  be  witty  in  every  extremity. 
This  rule  Chopin  observed  to  the  letter.  To 
understand  his  music  thoroughly,  and  with  it  to 
understand  the  best  of  the  music  of  the  Salon,  we 
must,  as  Professor  Niecks  has  said,  have  some- 
thing of  his  delicate  sensibility  and  romantic 
imagination.  '^To  understand  him  we  must  more- 
over know  something  of  his  life  and  country.  For, 
as  Balzac  truly  observed,  Chopin  was  less  a 
musician  than  unc  dme  qui  se  7'end  sensible.  In 
short,  his  compositions  are  the  celestial  echo  of 
what  he  had  felt,  lived,  and  suffered  ;  they  are  his 
memoirs,  his  autobiography  which,  like  that  of 
every  poet,  assumes  the  form  of  truth  and  poetry." 


[   227   ] 


THE  OLD  AGE  OF 
RICHARD  WAGNER 


...*',.', 


THE  OLD  AGE  OF 
RICHARD  WAGNER 

IT  has  been  the  strange  fate  of  the  musician 
Richard  Wagner,  who  died  at  the  age  of 
seventy,  to  grow  old  only  after  his  death. 
In  those  seventy  years,  so  filled  with  struggles, 
disappointments,  privations,  griefs,  fightings,  and 
only  at  the  very  end  illuminated  by  a  triumph 
that  was  like  the  bright  sunset  of  a  winter's  day, 
the  artist  in  him  grew  strong  and  came  to  ma- 
turity, but  never  grew  old.  The  lover,'  the  philo- 
sopher, the  revolutionary — these  partners  in  his 
personality  all  went  through  the  normal  course 
of  life  and  saw  old  age  ;  but  the  musician,  who 
dominated  them  all,  also  outlived  them  all,  and 
remained  young  and  untouched  by  the  decadence 
of  age.  The  others  were  all  buried  in  the  grave 
at  Bayreuth  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  ;  but  the 
musician,  being  of  imperishable  stuff,  was  re- 
leased at  that  general  dissolution  to  inhabit  the 
wide  world,  and  to  have  for  his  home  those  free 
regions  of  the  spirit  that  we  call  universal. 

[   231    ] 


THE  OLD  AGE  OF 

It  is  more  than  thirty  years  now  since  the  first 
Bayreuth  festival,  when  Wagner's  art  was  first 
revealed  to  the  world  in  the  ultimate  form  to 
which  he  had  brought  it,  and  in  which  he  was 
obliged  to  leave  it.  Ever  since  then  it  has  been 
living  and  growing,  extending  its  influence,  and 
continually  creating  anew  those  four  great  classes 
that  are  the  product  of  contact  with  a  living  as 
opposed  to  a  dead  masterpiece  :  the  people  who 
are  in  the  actual  process  of  initiation  into  its 
mysteries  ;  the  enthusiasts,  intoxicated  by  dis- 
covery, on  whom  its  beauty  has  just  dawned; 
the  devotees  who  have  studied  it,  understood  it, 
and  taken  it  as  a  permanent  possession  into  their 
lives ;  and  those  rapid  gallopers  through  the 
sensations  who  can  never  retain  possession  of 
anything,  who  have  in  their  day  been  discoverers, 
enthusiasts,  devotees,  but  in  whom  familiarity 
has  bred  a  contempt  which  makes  them  see  in 
the  object  of  their  former  devotion  defects  and 
shortcomings  which  are,  in  fact,  inherent  in  them- 
selves. You  may  meet  all  these  classes  to-day  at 
any  opera-house  where  Wagner's  later  works  are 
performed,  and  London  audiences  have  had 
many  and  various  opportunities  of  studying  them 
in  that  curious,  mixed,  unfamiliar  audience  that 
now  fills  Covent  Garden  when  any  serious  per- 

[  232  ] 


RICHARD  WAGNER 

formance  of  Wagner  is  attempted.  You  still  find 
there  the  people,  attracted,  in  spite  of  themselves, 
by  the  sheer  human  power  of  the  music,  to  whom 
everything  that  goes  on  upon  the  stage  is  a  dull 
mystery,  relieved  only  by  certain  familiar  mo- 
ments, as  when  Siegfried  forges  the  sword, 
Briinnhilde  is  laid  to  sleep  on  her  fire-girt  rock, 
or  the  gods  march  into  Valhalla.  For  such  people 
it  is  no  light  affliction  to  go  dinnerless  to  the 
theatre  for  four  consecutive  nights,  and  to  sit 
there  from  half-past  six  until  half-past  eleven, 
observing  events  which  they  do  not  understand, 
enduring  the  longueurs  of  Wotan  and  Erda,  the 
terrible  harangues  of  Fricka,  for  the  sake  of  the 
bright  moments  that  they  know  are  coming. 

How  acutely  must  they  suffer,  who  often  do  not 
know  who  is  who  upon  the  stage,  who  have  only 
the  common  sign-posts  of  operatic  convention  to 
guide  them;  who,  if  they  see  people  embracing, 
suppose  them  to  be  lovers,  or  if  a  sword  is  drawn 
conceive  that  some  one  present  is  about  to  be 
killed;  who  at  one  time  imagine  Wotan  to  be 
making  love  to  Briinnhilde,  and  at  another  believe 
that  he  has  killed  her ;  who  never  know  which  is 
Gunther  and  which  is  Hagen,  who  think  Siegfried 
meets  his  death  because  he  was  caught  making 
love  to  the  Rhine  maidens,  and  so  on!  There  is 

[   233   ] 


THE  OLD  AGE  OF 

no  such  excruciating  boredom  as  that  engendered 
by  any  great  work  of  art  in  the  minds  of  people 
who  have  not  some  key  to  its  meaning;  and  the 
solemnity  with  which  it  is  approached  by  others, 
their  attention  and  devotion  to  every  detail,  only 
add  a  sense  of  irritated  bewilderment  to  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  ignorant.  Yet  these  are  the  people 
whom  one  should  really  praise ;  they  have  stum- 
bled, all  unknowing,  into  the  right  path,  and 
having  strayed  there  are  held,  against  their 
reason,  against  their  comfort,  by  nothing  more 
than  an  occasional  gleam  of  far-distant  light  that 
twinkles  fitfully  through  the  fog  of  their  mis- 
understanding. And  it  is  this,  I  say,  which  is 
the  great  evidence  of  the  universal  youth  and 
vitality  in  the  actual  music  of  Wagner :  that  year 
by  year  it  takes  hold  of  the  raw  human  material 
of  the  world  and  woos  it  to  ultimate  understand- 
ing and  appreciation ;  for  the  bewildered  sufferers 
of  one  cycle  are  perhaps  the  enthusiasts  of  the 
next  but  one. 

But  Wagner  was  not  a  musician  only  ;  he  was 
also  a  poet  and  a  dramatist.  It  was  his  dream  to 
make  a  new  art  out  of  music  and  drama  combined, 
and  he  pretended  and  insisted  that  he  had  done  it. 
We  know  now  perfectly  well  that  he  did  not  do 
it,    that  you   cannot   cross   the    arts   as   you   can 

[   234  ] 


RICHARD   WAGNER 

orchids  and  produce  new  species;  hybrids  are  not 
fertile.  The  arts  are  like  the  elements,  primitive 
and  final,  and  on  this  planet  we  shall  discover  no 
more  of  them.  We  know  (what  Wagner  did  not 
know,  or  refused  to  believe)  that  the  fine  arts  are 
separate  from  one  another,  even  jealous  and  in- 
tolerant of  one  another,  for  it  is  the  function  of 
each  to  re-create  the  whole  universe  in  its  own 
terms.  We  know  that  you  cannot  appreciate 
painting  in  terms  of  poetry,  or  poetry  in  terms 
of  music,  or  music  in  any  terms  but  its  own  ;  and 
we  know  that  all  these  so-called  hybrid  forms  of 
art  are  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  debased  and 
cannot  rank  with  the  great  arts. 

Wagner,  then,  did  not  create  a  new  art  of 
music  and  drama ;  what  he  did  was  to  make  opera 
a  much  more  reasonable  and  respectable  form  of 
entertainment  than  it  had  been  as  he  found  it. 
Formerly  only  one  sense — that  of  hearing — had 
been  seriously  appealed  to,  and  every  other  artistic 
sense  had  been  flippantly  outraged.  By  insisting 
that  since  opera  is  founded  on  drama  it  should  be 
in  actual  fact,  and  not  in  name  only,  dramatic; 
that  since  words  had  to  be  sung  they  should  be 
used  in  a  sense  agreeable  to  the  ear  and  mind, 
and  not  outrageous  to  both  ;  and  that  since  scenery 
had  to  be  used,  it  should,  if  possible,  be  beautiful 

t  235  ] 


THE  OLD  ACE  OF 

scenery  that  would  help  the  imaginative  illusion 
which  is  a  primary  condition  of  good  drama, 
Wagner  made  opera  reasonable  and  coherent. 

To  do  all  this  was  an  immense  achievement; 
and  he  did  it  practically  single-handed.  He  was 
a  great  organiser,  a  great  beggar ;  he  convinced 
the  world  that  the  achievement  of  his  end  was 
a  thing  of  which  it  stood  desperately  in  need 
(although,  left  to  itself,  the  world  had  been  really 
of  quite  another  opinion)  ;  he  got  the  money,  he 
built  the  theatre,  he  wrote  the  play,  he  wrote 
the  music,  he  taught  the  singers,  he  invented 
the  scenery,  he  thought  out  every  detail,  from  the 
spiritual  and  philosophic  meaning  of  his  work  to 
the  conduct  of  the  attendants  at  the  doors  and  the 
arrangements  for  people  to  take  their  seats  in  the 
easiest  and  most  orderly  way ;  in  fact,  the  festival 
music-drama  as  planned,  invented,  and  carried 
out  by  Richard  Wagner  is  perhaps  the  most 
magnificent  game  that  has  ever  been  invented 
for  the  pleasure  of  human  beings,  and  was  a 
stupendous  thing  for  one  man  to  have  done  in 
the  later  years  of  an  arduous  and,  on  the  whole, 
sorrowful  life.  He  did  it  so  well  because  he  was 
passionately  in  earnest  about  it ;  and  the  principle 
which,  above  all  others,  supremely  governed  him 
in   his  wonderful   administration   of  every  detail 

[   236  ] 


RICHARD   WAGNER 

was  the  determination  to  make  a  clean  sweep  of 
all  custom  and  convention  where  these  could  be 
improved  upon,  or  where  anything  better  could 
be  substituted  ;  to  do  nothing  in  the  way  that  it 
had  been  done  before  if  any  better  way  could  be 
discovered  ;  to  cut  through  the  conventions  of  any 
particular  method  to  the  original  end  for  which 
that  method  was  devised,  to  find  how  far  that 
end  was  being  served  by  the  existing  method, 
and  to  improve  upon  it,  or  to  do  away  with  it 
altogether  if  necessary. 

There  is  no  form  of  art  which  he  touched  upon 
which  he  has  not  left  the  mark  of  this  reform. 
The  technique  of  the  modern  orchestra  is  Wagner 
from  beginning  to  end  ;  notes  on  the  violin  that 
were,  in  his  day,  unplayable  except  by  virtuosi 
are  now  at  the  fingers'  ends  of  every  player  who 
earns  his  ten  shillings  a  night  in  an  orchestra. 
He  raised  the  whole  body  of  brass  instruments 
from  a  degraded  position  of  being  mere  accentors 
of  rhythm  and  increasers  of  noise  to  the  dignity  of 
partnership  in  the  melodious  chorus  of  his  scores. 
He  first  practised,  and  to  a  great  extent  invented, 
the  modern  system  of  orchestration  which  treats 
each  family  or  group  of  instruments  as  a  separate 
voice  in  the  orchestra,  and  insisted  upon  each 
family   being   complete   in    itself  and    having   its 

L    237   ] 


THE  OLD  AGE  OF 

scale  extended  to  include  the  highest  and  lowest 
notes  of  the  harmony.  He  banished  every  conven- 
tion of  the  old  opera  and  substituted  for  them 
the  methods  of  true  drama.  He  invented  modern 
conducting  as  we  know  it,  and  sent  Richter, 
Von  Billow,  Levi,  and  Mottl  out  into  the  world 
as  apostles  to  bear  the  glad  tidings  that  orchestral 
interpretation  need  no  longer  be  at  the  mercy  of 
the  ^^  pig-tail"  school.  He  even  invented  a  new 
kind  of  melody  ;  and  if  one  soberly  considers  the 
meaning  of  those  words,  the  achievement  will 
appear  astounding.  The  recitative  of  his  operas 
imitates  the  accent  and  inflection  of  the  human 
speaking  tones,  merely  exaggerating  them  to  the 
degree  necessary  to  give  them  definite  musical 
pitch.  He  was  perhaps  more  successful  in  this 
than  in  any  other  thing  which  he  attempted, 
always  excepting  his  actual  writing  of  orchestral 
music.  If  you  try  to  sing  and  play  on  the  piano  a 
few  lines  of  rapid  recitative  from  any  of  the  later 
Wagner  scores,  you  will  find  it  almost  impossible, 
however  good  your  ear  is,  to  hit  accurately  the 
curious  intervals  between  the  notes  ;  and  yet,  as 
any  Wagnerian  singer  knows,  once  these  passages 
are  learned  by  heart  and  sung  at  the  proper  speak- 
ing pace  it  is  almost  impossible  not  to  sing  them 
right ;  they  come  as  if  by  nature,  and  the  voice, 

[  238  ] 


RICHARD  WAGNER 

if  left  to  itself,  will  fall  upon  the  right  notes  as 
though  by  instinct.  A  tremendous  thing — and  yet 
only  one  of  the  hundred  ways  in  which  Wagner's 
youthful  spirit  assailed  all  the  conventions  of  his 
time  and  created  an  entirely  new  set  of  conditions 
to  serve  his  purpose. 

How  does  it  come,  then,  that  he  is  growing 
old?  Whence  come  these  mists  in  which,  like  the 
gods  when  Freia  with  her  golden  apples  of  youth 
was  taken  away  from  them,  he  appears  to  be 
withering  and  ageing? 

In  the  thirty  years  which  have  elapsed  since 
^^The  Ring"  was  first  produced  at  Bayreuth  many 
things  that  were  startling  innovations  then  have 
passed  through  the  stages  of  being  ordinary,  of 
being  old-fashioned,  of  being  obsolete.  Many 
things  in  connection  with  stage  representation 
w^hich  were  wonderful  in  1876  are  not  wonderful 
now  ;  many  things  w^hich  were  advanced  then  are 
old-fashioned  now  :  hence  what  I  have  called  the 
old  age  of  Richard  Wagner.  ^'The  Ring,"  which 
depends  for  its  success  as  a  stage  production  on 
the  employment  of  every  effect  which  an  en- 
lightened and  artistic  and  mechanical  genius  can 
compass,  is  being  produced  to-day  exactly  as  it 
was  produced  thirty  years  ago.  A  few  mechanical 
details   have    been   altered — not    always    for    the 

[   239  ] 


THE  OLT>  AGE  OF 

better ;  but  the  minute  rules  as  laid  down  by 
Wagner  for  the  government  of  every  stage  effect 
throughout  that  great  entertainment  form  the  Bible 
which  to-day  is  accepted  as  the  only  true  guide. 
The  only  deviations  permitted  are  deviations  below 
Wagner's  standard.  We  are  permitted  to  produce 
^^The  Ring"  worse  than  he  produced  it,  but  we 
are  not  permitted  to  produce  it  better.  The  condi- 
tions which  have  brought  about  such  a  state  of 
things  are  very  peculiar  and  intricate,  and  while 
Wagner's  family  at  Bayreuth  retains  its  jealous 
grip  of  authority,  and  still  more — for  with  the 
lapse  of  years  legal  authority  is  passing  away  from 
it — while  it  is  still  regarded  as  the  fountain-head 
of  wisdom  and  tradition  in  such  matters,  there  are 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  any  improvement. 

But  it  is  time  to  say  that  the  need  of  such  a 
group  as  that  which  pontificates  from  Villa  Wahn- 
fried  is  past.  Its  work  is  done,  and  it  was  well 
done.  It  needed  a  strong  guiding  hand  and  a  real 
reverence  for  the  master's  memory  to  carry  the 
business  of  the  festival  performances  through  the 
difficult  years  that  followed  Wagner's  death,  and 
that  strong  and  guiding  hand  was  furnished  by 
Madame  Wagner.  She  nursed  his  art — that  true 
Siegfried  of  his  dreams — through  the  early  years 
of  its  fatherless  life,  and  the  world  will  always  owe 

I   240  ] 


RICHARD   WAGNER 

her  reverence  and  grratitude.  But  Wag'ncr's  art  is 
no  longer  in  need  of  a  nurse  ;  in  fact,  it  has  had  a 
Httletoo  much  supervision  ;  Siegfried  has  been  kept 
in  curls  and  petticoats  long  after  he  should  have 
been  wearing  holes  in  the  knees  of  his  trousers. 
All  this  nursing  and  coddling  of  Wagner's  works 
as  though  they  were  local  and  not  universal,  as 
though  one  had  to  belong  to  a  special  family  to 
understand  them,  and  as  though  they  could  not 
bear  the  ordinary  light  of  the  ordinary  day,  has 
become  entirely  mischievous  to  the  development 
of  those  very  ideals  which  Wagner  most  passion- 
ately believed  in.  How  would  Herr  Siegfried 
Wagner  (who  aids  and  abets  his  mother  in  the 
business)  like  it  if  ever  since  his  father's  death  he 
had  been  confined  in  one  room  and  made  to  wear 
the  same  kind  of  clothes  which  he  was  wearing  in 
1883  ?  For  all  living  things  do  grow  and  develop 
in  the  world  ;  you  cannot,  if  they  be  really  living, 
arrest  them  at  any  one  point  and  say  :  **This  is 
perfection — stop  here."  Herr  Siegfried  Wagner 
has  changed  very  much  since  1883  ;  he  wears 
different  clothes,  thinks  different  thoughts,  dreams 
different  dreams  from  the  dreams  and  thoughts 
and  clothes  of  twenty-five  years  ago.  The  very 
body  of  the  master  has  not  been  denied  the  benefit 
of  the  common  law  ;  it  has  changed,  its  con- 
•     Q  [   241    J 


thf:  old  age  or 

stituents  have  been  liberated  to  g*o  back  and  take 
up  the  endless  tale  of  matter  in  the  universe  :  why 
should  his  spirit  only,  or  the  outward  shell  of  it, 
have  been  imprisoned  all  these  years  within  that 
very  crust  of  convention  which  he  spent  so  much 
strength  in  breaking?  It  is  of  no  use  to  pretend 
that  it  is  not  so  ;  it  is  so,  and  the  art  of  Richard 
Wagner  as  it  is  presented  to-day  at  an  ordinary 
opera-house  would  be  in  peril  from  every  clear, 
youthful,  unbiased  critical  intelligence  if  it  were 
not  for  the  almost  hypnotic  power  of  the  actual 
music  to  win  even  the  fault-finder  to  an  emotional 
allegiance. 

It  is  another  sign  of  the  mischievous  influence 
of  those  who  should  have  been  the  truest  friends 
to  Wagner's  interests,  that  while  they  have  turned 
all  his  ideas  into  conventions  and  made  what  was 
living  and  molten  in  him  into  a  hard  mould  of  cus- 
tom, it  is  the  letter  of  his  teaching  much  more  than 
the  spirit  that  they  have  observed.  The  thing  about 
which  he  was  most  particular,  rightly  or  wrongly, 
was  that  ^^  The  Ring  "  should  be  treated  as  a  fes- 
tival play,  that  for  its  proper  appreciation  it  was 
necessary  that  people  should  have  to  take  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  trouble,  should  even  have  to  make 
a  little  pilgrimage,  and  should,  at  any  rate,  during 
the  four  days  of  its  performance,  have  their  minds 

[    242   ] 


RICHARD   WAGNER 

almost  entirely  occupied  with  it.  A  considerable 
experience  of  Wagner  performances  of  every  kind 
has  convinced  me  that  he  was  profoundly  right  in 
this  ;  the  scale  of  his  work  is  such  that  an  im- 
mense deal  of  concentration  of  mind  is  necessary 
if  the  whole  is  to  be  understood,  and  the  world  in 
which  his  characters  live  is  one  so  different  from 
any  world  of  experience  that  the  projection  of  one- 
self into  it  for  the  purposes  of  witnessing  a  per- 
formance at  an  ordinary  theatre  is  an  imaginative 
feat  of  which  most  people  are  incapable.  Yet  this 
principle  of  Wagner's,  while  continually  expressed 
and  insisted  upon  in  his  writings,  is  subverted 
whenever  any  member  of  the  original  Wagner 
group  directly  or  indirectly  assists  a  production 
at  an  ordinary  opera-house.  The  only  work  they 
kept  hold  of  was  **  Parsifal,"  and  ^*  Parsifal,"  a 
drama  requiring  one  day  for  performance,  might, 
under  certain  conditions,  be  much  more  satisfac- 
torily given  in  an  ordinary  opera-house  than  **The 
Ring."  I  emphasise  this  point,  not  because  Wag- 
ner's works  cannot  stand  the  ordinary  light  of  the 
ordinary  day,  but  for  a  quite  practical  reason.  The 
snare  of  ordinary  operatic  performances  of  these 
works  is  that,  while  the  music  is  sufficiently  attrac- 
tive to  make  them  pay,  many  of  the  people  who 
support  them,  and  support  them  willingly,  cannot 

I    243    I 


THE  OLD  AGE  OF 

be  said  actually  to  enjoy  the  performances  as  a 
whole,  or  to  have  any  real  conception  of  what 
Wagner  intended  to  give  them  ;  and  that  so  long 
as  they  put  up  with  these  operatic  performances 
there  is  the  less  chance  of  suitable  theatres  being 
built.  I  am  convinced  that  there  is  enough  appre- 
ciation of  Wagner  in  England  to  build  a  modest 
festival  theatre  and  pay  for  annual  performances 
in  it,  if  people  knew  that  there  was  no  other  way 
for  them  to  hear  Wagner's  later  operas  ;  but  so 
long  as  they  are  performed  in  the  ordinary  opera- 
house  the  public  will  put  up  with  that  instead  of 
striving  for  ideal  conditions.  It  is  not  my  business 
here  to  go  into  the  question  of  a  festival  theatre, 
but  I  need  only  say  that  I  do  not  mean  by  that  an 
establishment  restricted  to  the  performances  of 
Wagner's  operas  ;  I  merely  mean  a  rationally 
built  theatre,  equipped  with  a  stage  suitable  for 
the  performance  of  opera,  and  built  somewhere 
away  from  the  din  of  streets  and  moil  of  towns, 
yet  within  easy  reach  of  London — as  Mr.  Bernard 
Shaw  suggested  long  ago  ;  a  theatre,  moreover, 
in  which  performances  of  Shakespeare,  of  Greek 
plays,  and  of  any  other  great  works  demanding 
the  festival  spirit  could  also  be  performed. 

The  participation  in  imperfect  performances  is 
only  one  of  the  many  ways  in  which  Wagner's 

[  244  ] 


RICHARD  WAGNER 

friends  and  pupils  have  failed  to  carry  out  the 
spirit  of  his  work  ;  and  yet  they  have  given  away 
the  principle  of  hard-and-fast  adherence  to  the 
conditions  as  they  were  in  1876  just  enough  to 
vitiate  that  as  an  excuse  for  refusing  to  sanction 
any  improvement  that  did  not  occur  to  Wagner. 
The  theatre  and  stage  at  Bayreuth  in  1876  were 
lighted  by  gas,  but  the  management  does  not 
now  dispense  with  the  advantage  of  electric  light 
just  because  it  had  not  been  perfected  in  Wagner's 
time.  He  changed  his  mind  a  dozen  times  in  the 
course  of  the  rehearsals  of  ^*The  Ring"  about 
quite  serious  points  in  interpretation,  and  if  he 
had  lived  longer  he  would  have  changed  his  mind 
again;  yet  all  the  principles  of  interpretation  as 
promulgated  in  the  Bayreuth  edicts  are  as  un- 
changed as  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians  ; 
no  new  light,  no  new  intelligence,  no  new  genius 
or  talent  willing  to  spend  itself  in  the  service  of 
Wagner,  are  allowed  to  modify  those  fixed  ideas 
by  ever  so  little  ;  costumes — some  quite  ridiculous 
in  the  light  of  modern  intelligence  and  cultivation 
— scenery,  decorations,  stage  actions  even,  these 
have  all  become  as  much  conventionalised  in 
Wagner's  opera  as  the  costumes  and  scenery  and 
stage  actions  of  ordinary  opera  had  become  in 
the  days  when  he  set  himself  to  destroy  them. 

[   245  ] 


THE  OLD  AGE  OF 

My  point  is  that  if  Wagner  had  been  alive  (and 
aged  sixty-three)  now  he  would  not  have  remained 
stuck  at  the  point  which  his  development  had 
reached  in  1876.  He  was  a  man  always  in  advance 
of  his  time,  never  behind  it.  He  cared  nothing 
for  the  fact  that  any  given  condition  had  existed 
for  a  number  of  years  if  he  thought  that  by  any 
effort  or  trouble  that  condition  could  be  made 
better.  He  felt  this  deeply;  he  felt  it  about  life, 
about  social  government,  about  politics,  about 
laws  of  conduct,  about  dress,  about  food,  but 
most  of  all  and  most  passionately  he  felt  it  about 
art.  That  was  his  youth  and  that  was  his  great- 
ness ;  age  is  a  stiffening,  a  loss  of  curiosity,  a 
loss  of  courage,  a  deadening ;  death  is  a  state 
of  fixity ;  but  life  and  youth  are  conditions  of 
movement  and  of  progress.  And  though  I  said 
in  the  beginning  of  this  article  that  Wagner's 
influence  in  the  world  is  still  growing,  I  must 
admit  that  I  think  the  garment  of  opera  in  which 
he  clothed  it  is  in  danger  of  growing  also,  grow- 
ing as  garments  can  alone  grow — growing  old. 
It  will  be  the  world's  fault  if,  because  of  that,  his 
art  itself  is  ever  allowed  to  become  old-fashioned 
or  obsolete,  or  alien  to  what  is  strong  and  fluent 
in  the  currents  of  life.  The  thing  itself,  the  music, 
can  never  grow  old  ;  but  in  this  curious  combina- 

L  246  ] 


RICHARD   WAGNER 

tion  of  music  and  drama,  the  drama  and  all  its 
appurtenances  are  like  a  mortal  body  in  which 
the  immortal  spirit  of  the  music  is  vested  ;  the 
spirit  will  remain,  but  the  body  must  be  renewed 
from  generation  to  generation  ;  and  there  is  no 
reason  that  even  the  body  should  be  dressed  in 
the  clothes  of  a  bygone  age  or  fashion. 

It  is  the  business  of  the  younger  generation, 
those  who  care  for  his  art,  to  rescue  Wagner 
from  this  old  age  into  which  he  is  being  allowed 
to  fall.  His  dramas  as  he  left  them  were  full  of 
faults,  which  he  himself  would  have  seen  and 
remedied  in  time.  They  are  too  long,  they  are 
full  of  repetitions,  they  have  wearisome  excres- 
cences which  should  be  cut  away,  as  he  certainly 
would  have  cut  them  away  had  he  lived;  but  in 
the  eyes  of  the  keepers  of  the  Bayreuth  mortuary 
disease  is  as  sacred  as  health,  death  more  re- 
spectable than  life,  and  every  excrescence  of 
equal  importance  with  the  most  vital  part  of  the 
design.  Those  of  us  who  care  will  have  to  fight 
that  spirit  sooner  or  later.  We  shall  be  accused 
of  irreverence,  of  every  kind  of  quackery  and 
vandalism,  but  it  will  not  matter;  we  shall  be 
fighting  to  rescue  Wagner,  as  I  have  said,  from 
a  condition  of  age  and  decrepitude  which  would 
have  been  very  hateful  to  him,  and  to  restore  to 

[   247   ] 


RICHARD  WAGNER 

his  work  that  glory  of  youth  which  it  had  when 
it  left  his  hand.  Not  a  note  of  his  music,  the 
living  spirit,  need  ever  be  touched ;  but  the 
operas  must  be  reconsidered,  some  of  them  cut 
down  and  endowed  with  the  grace  of  proportion 
which  at  present  they  lack,  and  the  whole  ques- 
tion of  the  mounting  of  them  gone  into  from  the 
very  beginning — not  on  the  lines  of  existing  stage 
methods,  with  strips  of  cloth  for  skies  and  fret- 
work trees  and  cloth  stones,  but  on  such  lines  as 
the  most  able  and  imaginative  genius  which  can 
combine  poetry  and  stage  illusion  shall  lay  down. 
The  time  is  not  quite  yet,  but  it  must  come  before 
long,  and  the  sooner  we  begin  to  accustom  our- 
selves to  the  idea  the  better. 

It  is  purely  this  question  of  its  external  clothing 
that  has  put  Wagner's  work  in  danger.  Bach  does 
not  grow  old,  nor  Beethoven ;  it  is  the  immortal, 
ever-youthful  spirit  of  music  that  speaks  to  us 
in  them.  We  must  not  let  it  be  different  with 
Wagner,  for  the  years  have  nothing  to  do  with 
it.  Who  that  has  stood  in  the  gallery  at  Vienna 
before  Titian's  ^* Nymph  and  Shepherd"  can  ever 
think  of  it  as  the  work  of  an  old  man,  or  associate 
Titian  with  age  or  death?  And  Wagner's  place 
is  '^with  him,  among  the  gods  [who  have  life  and 
strength  and  youth  for  ever. 

[   248  ] 


THE  TWO 
WESTMINSTERS 


THE  TWO   WEST^ 
MINSTERS: 

WITH  SOME  THOUGHTS  ON  MUSIC 
AND  RELIGION 


MUSIC,  child  of  the  world's  joy,  and 
religion,  heir  of  all  its  sorrows,  have 
in  their  origins  little  or  nothing  in 
common  ;  and  music  had  well-nigh  outlived  its 
Pagan  youth  before  the  religion  that  was  to  be- 
friend it  had  been  born.  They  developed  each  on 
their  own  lines  and  were  nourished  each  from 
different  sources  ;  but  when  both  had  become 
definitely  developed  channels  of  human  expres- 
sion they  met  and  united  in  the  early  maturity  of 
civilisation.  From  that  point,  for  a  long  time 
afterwards,  they  flowed  together  on  parallel  lines. 
Wherever  there  was  a  relio-ion  there  was  also 
music  ;  the  Christian  Church  especially  took 
music  under  her  wing,  cherished,  endowed,  and 

[  25.  ] 


THE  TWO 

developed  it,  and  finally  united  it  with  religion 
in  the  plainsong  and  Gregorian  melodies  of  the 
Church. 

It  was  a  happy  marriage  ;  had  the  world  stood 
still  in  the  Middle  Ages,  had  it  thereafter  never 
grown  or  developed  any  more,  it  might  have  been 
happy  to  the  end  of  the  chapter.  But  you  have 
often  seen  in  human  life  a  parallel  case  to  this, 
where  one  party  grew  and  developed  after 
marriage  and  the  other  did  not,  so  that  the  one 
outgrew  the  other,  and  the  community  of  tastes 
and  interests  on  which  the  union  had  been 
founded  was  lost.  Religion,  the  feminine  element 
in  this  union,  had  reached  her  full  maturity,  her 
day  of  beauty  and  splendour  ;  music  had  been 
toiling  to  reach  a  similar  stage  of  development ; 
and,  always  growing  and  developing,  music  at 
last  reached  an  equal  stage  of  perfection  with 
religion.  Then  came  the  union.  But  that  which 
had  been  moving  went  on  moving,  and  that  which 
had  become  stationary  remained  stationary,  with 
the  result  that  music,  which  had  once  overtaken 
religion  from  a  long  way  behind,  ultimately 
passed  her  and  left  her  far  behind  in  her  turn. 
You  will  realise,  of  course,  that  I  am  speaking 
of  religion  in  the  external  sense  of  the  word  ;  I 
am  judging  simply  by  the  condition  of  its  ex- 

[   252  ] 


WESTMINSTERS 

ternal  manifestations,  by  the  degree  in  which  it 
enters  into  the  everyday  Hfe  of  man  in  this  world  ; 
I  shall  not  be  expected  to  attempt  any  more 
subtle  or  spiritual  estimate  of  its  power,  or  lack 
of  power.  But  it  once,  as  we  know,  really  filled 
man's  life  in  the  Western  world  ;  was  a  channel 
through  which  art  and  learning  reached  men,  was 
their  sole  and  complete  point  of  contact  with  the 
things  of  the  spirit  ;  and  in  that  day  we  had 
perfect  architecture,  perfect  painting,  and,  so  far 
as  it  went,  perfect  music.  We  shall  never,  I  am 
sure,  achieve  anything  more  beautiful  in  architec- 
ture than  the  perfection  of  ecclesiastical  archi- 
tecture, not  because  the  architect  of  the  future 
will  not  create  buildings  as  fit  for  scientific  or 
commercial  purposes  as  the  old  buildings  were 
for  religious  purposes,  but  simply  because  science 
and  commerce  are  less  mysterious  and  less  beauti- 
ful things  than  religion,  and  the  buildings  which 
are  part  of  their  concrete  expression  will  be  less 
beautiful  than  the  buildings  which  express  re- 
ligion. But  there  is  a  great  deal  of  paganism  in 
music;  it  has  its  own  life,  its  own  line  of  develop- 
ment ;  and  when  its  foster-mother,  the  church, 
could  do  no  more  for  it,  I  am  afraid  it  had  little 
compunction  in  seeking  development  on  other 
lines   until   its   incompatibility   with   religion   has 

[  253  ] 


THE  TWO 

become  so  marked  that,  to  pursue  my  metaphor 
to  its  limit,  a  separation  seems  imminent,  if  it  has 
not  already  taken  place.  One  has  grown  while  the 
other  has  been  standing  still  ;  and  there  is  no 
gulf  in  the  world  so  deep  and  so  impassable  as 
the  gulf  between  things  that  move  and  things 
that  are  stationary,  between  things  that  grow 
and  things  that  are  stagnant,  between  the  living 
and  the  dead. 

We  must  accept  it  as  a  fact  that  much,  and  in- 
deed most,  of  the  leading  thought  of  our  time  is 
not  at  all  identified  with  religion.  It  has  admittedly 
lost  its  hold  on  our  world.  But  music  has  not 
slipped  back  with  it,  has  not  become  a  beautiful 
anachronism,  but  has  retained  its  hold  on  human 
life  and  still  claims  the  interest  of  the  cultivated 
and  advanced  thought  of  the  day.  In  that  union 
of  which  we  spoke  music  would  have  had  either 
to  drag  religion  forward  with  it,  or  be  held  back 
by  it  if  they  had  remained  really  united  in  spirit ; 
but  that  has  not  happened.  Music  has  not  been 
held  back  ;  or  rather  it  has  happened  only  in 
religious  music  ;  in  every  other  kind  of  music 
the  art  has  progressed.  No  one  can  write  religious 
music  now  as  well  as  it  used  to  be  written,  but 
the  resources  of  all  other  kinds  of  music  have 
been  developed.  We  get  a  far  finer  tone  out  of  an 

[   254  ] 


WESTMINSTERS 

orchestra  than  we  did  a  hundred  years  ago, 
though  I  doubt  if  we  get  as  fine  a  tone  from  our 
organs  as  we  did  a  hundred  years  ago.  And  why, 
if  not  that  improvement  means  growth,  although 
growth  does  not  necessarily  mean  improvement  ; 
but  where  you  find  that  a  thing  has  become 
stationary  and  improved  no  more,  you  will  prob- 
ably find  that  it  has  ceased  to  grow. 

II 

If  this  were  all,  if  the  music  that  we  associate 
with  religion  had  remained  merely  where  it  was 
at  its  best,  we  should  be  well  off,  but  that  is  not 
the  case.  There  is  another  inexorable  law  that 
comes  into  operation  in  a  matter  of  this  kind — the 
law  of  decay.  Things  that  cease  to  live  cannot 
remain  in  a  state  of  fixity  ;  they  die,  or  in  other 
words  they  begin  to  go  back  ;  for  the  death  of 
anything  is  simply  the  apex  of  its  development, 
the  point  at  which  it  ceases  to  go  forward  or 
grow,  and  at  which  it  begins  to  go  back  or  decay 
— there  is  really  no  pause.  It  is  no  wonder,  then, 
that  we  do  not  find  religious  music  in  anything 
like  the  state  of  perfection  that  it  reached  at  its 
zenith. 

It  is  not   sufficiently  realised  how  very  much 

I  255  ] 


THE  TWO 

lower  the  average  standard  of  musical  taste  and 
performance  is  in  our  churches  than  anywhere 
else.  Its  badness  is  indeed  worth  a  moment's 
study.  A  very  ominous  fact  in  connection  with  it 
is  that  the  more  genuine  and  real  the  religion 
nowadays,  the  worse  the  music.  I  suppose  the 
bed-rock  of  musical  bad  taste  is  the  Salvation 
Army,  but  I  do  not  think  that  any  one  denies  that 
the  whole  success  of  that  great  organisation  is 
founded  on  its  power  to  evoke  a  genuine,  although 
emotional,  sense  of  damnation  and  salvation.  Go 
into  many  a  parish  church  where  real  hard  social 
work  is  being  done,  into  any  Catholic  church  in 
a  slum  crowded  with  people  who  really  go  there 
in  spiritual  belief  and  sincerity,  or  into  any  of 
those  brightly  lighted,  hideous  little  chapels  that 
are  crowded  with  bad  taste  and  heartiness — that 
is  where  you  will  find  the  worst  music.  Remember, 
I  speak  from  a  purely  aesthetic  standpoint ;  the 
music  may  be  hearty  indeed,  it  may  be  obviously 
the  real  expression  of  something,  but  as  music  it 
will  be  bad — bad  form,  bad  taste,  a  vulgar  and 
meretricious  performance.  And  go  into  West- 
minster Cathedral  where  still  you  can  hear  the 
perfection  of  church  music,  where  the  beauty 
and  austerity,  the  carefully  studied  traditional 
methods  of  expression,  the  noble  formality,  and 

[  256  ] 


WESTMINSTERS 

the  fine  and  classically  religious  spirit  of  the 
music  that  is  performed,  combine  in  a  ver)-  fine 
aesthetic  effect.  And  then  look  round  you  in  the 
cathedral.  How  many  people  are  there  ?  Can  that 
vast  building*  really  pretend  to  be  a  centre  and 
fountain  of  great  spiritual  life?  Of  course  not.  Its 
music  is  a  beautiful  anachronism  ;  just  as  the 
neighbouring  Abbey  of  Westminster  is  an  an- 
achronism, happily  preserved  for  us  by  means  of 
ancient  endowments  and  foundations,  but  having 
no  more  to  do  with  the  spiritual  life  of  to-day 
than  the  Elgin  Marbles  or  the  temples  of  Egypt 
that  the  desert  sand  has  covered. 

Now  when  we  find  a  combination  like  this,  the 
badness  of  the  music  proceeding  in  exact  pro- 
portion with  the  goodness  of  the  religion,  and  the 
best  and  purest  music  existing  only  in  circum- 
stances from  which  the  vital  spirit  of  religion  has 
long  departed,  we  may  be  pretty  sure  that  there 
is  something  essentially  incompatible  between 
the  two  and  their  relations  with  modern  life. 

Music,  as  I  have  said,  is  and  ought  to  be  the 
very  best  vehicle  for  the  religious  emotions. 
Religious  worship  is  the  most  magnificent  drama 
performed  among  men — the  most  complete,  the 
most  beautiful.  The  thing  which  it  expresses  is 
upon  the  very  verge  of  the  imagination.  The 
R  [    257    ] 


THE  TWO 

ideal  of  it  is  seldom  attained,  for  to  attain  it  is 
to  lose  touch  with  earth  and  mingle  ourselves 
with  mysteries.  For  that  great  journey  beyond 
our  own  consciousness  we  need  strong  wings. 
The  idea  that  we  seek  is  shaped  for  us  in  words, 
but  to  lift  it  and  us  wings  of  music  are  needed. 
The  particular  suitability  of  music  for  this  purpose 
is  that  it  is  at  once  more  and  less  articulate  than 
any  other  kind  of  expression.  More  articulate,  in 
that  its  expression  begins  where  that  of  language 
ends,  and  deals  with  subtleties  which  a  word 
would  destroy  ;  less  articulate,  in  that  it  is  not 
yet  formed  into  a  common  language  of  life,  de- 
based by  being  fitted  to  petty  or  gross  ideas.  It 
reveals  or  expresses  things  of  which  we  might 
remain  for  ever  unconscious  without  its  aid  ;  it  is 
to  our  inner  consciousness  what  sunlight  is  (or 
should  be)  to  our  outer  ;  a  chord  of  music,  if  it 
but  sound  at  the  right  moment,  will  shine  right 
into  the  soul  as  a  shaft  of  sunlight  into  a  dark 
room.  Hence  its  inevitable  place  in  that  drama 
whereby  man  makes  a  supreme  effort  to  fix  heart 
and  understanding  upon  eternity,  divinity,  infinity, 
or  any  other  humanly  inconceivable  thing  ;  hence 
its  glory  and  honour,  as  the  means  whereby  we 
may  rise  beyond  our  material  limitations. 

And  yet,  as  we  have  seen,  the  music  associated 

[   258  ] 


WESTMINSTERS 

with  religious  worship  in  England  is  in  a  very 
low  and  unworthy  condition.  Churches  and 
chapels  are  too  often  the  homes  of  the  most 
grotesque  travesties  of  what  is  beautiful  in 
music.  The  national  taste  is  only  beginning  to 
be  educated  ;  but  then,  so  is  our  taste  in  archi- 
tecture and  in  painting,  as  the  middle-class  house 
and  the  pictures  on  the  dining-room  walls  of  the 
middle-class  house  show.  Yet  we  do  not  build 
or  decorate  churches  entirely  in  accordance  with 
the  average  middle-class  taste.  We  borrow  from 
other  nations,  other  ages,  in  which  these  arts 
were  at  their  zenith,  and  so  make  an  attempt  at 
least  to  make  the  ceremonies  of  religion  worthy 
of  their  purpose.  But  with  music  these  attempts 
are  abandoned.  Tunes  that  tickle  the  uneducated 
ear  are  *^  wedded  "  to  words  of  steamy  sentimen- 
tality, and  offered  as  an  adequate  expression  of 
the  exquisite  flower  of  human  devotion.  Luscious, 
cloying  harmonies,  wafted  on  the  tone  of  fantastic 
organ  stops,  prolong  the  sickly  feast  ;  and  the 
silly  imagery  of  words  wholly  unsuited  to  men  and 
women  with  hearts  to  be  braced  and  burdens  of 
flesh  and  spirit  to  be  borne  is  matched  with 
strains  so  ignoble,  so  cheap  in  the  employment 
of  the  elementary  tricks  of  popular  musical  phrase- 
making  as   to  be   nothing  but  offences   to   ears 

L   259   ] 


THE  TWO 

even  slightly  accustomed  to  music  in  its  nobler 
form. 

The  reason  for  this  state  of  things  constitutes 
its  most  serious  mischief.  Music,  more  than  any- 
thing else,  except,  perhaps,  some  perfumes,  can 
breathe  life  into  these  dead  leaves  of  the  memory 
that  float  on  the  stream  of  thought  and  are  called 
associations.  The  sound  of  voices  long  silent,  the 
brush  of  wind  on  the  face,  a  landscape,  a  group 
of  figures,  a  night-sky — these  things  can  all  be 
brought  instantly,  and  for  an  instant,  to  life  by 
a  chord  or  melody  of  music.  And  tender  memories 
of  childhood,  of  happy  dependence  on  parents 
before  the  sad  and  dismaying  sense  of  loneliness 
and  self-dependence  had  set  in  —  those  most 
beautiful  things  live  for  us  in  music  ;  and  (since 
for  most  of  us  the  first  associations  of  religion  are 
bound  up  with  nursery  memories)  it  happens  that 
some  of  these  sentimental  hymn-ditties  are 
identified  with  some  of  the  best  and  most 
tender  feelings  that  we  know.  Well,  let  us  grant 
it.  We  may  admit  that,  if  you  sang  a  stupid 
hymn  at  your  mother's  knee,  that  hymn  is  cer- 
tainly not  stupid  to  you,  but  a  holy  and  beautiful 
thing  ;  still,  that  is  no  reason  why  you  should 
load  the  same  tune  with  the  seed  of  your  child's 
future  harvest  of  memories.   If  you  do,   you  are 

[   260   1 


WESTMINSTERS 

perpetuating  an  ugly  thing,  and  endangering 
your  child's  sense  of  beauty.  And  you  run  a 
further  risk  ;  for  the  child  may  find  out  for  him- 
self that  the  thing  he  was  taught  to  regard  as 
beautiful  is  essentially  ugly,  and  he  may  argue 
from  this  that  the  idea  it  carried  for  him  is  also 
false  and  even  ugly.  When  anything  which  has 
been  ^^  hallowed"  by  time,  custom,  sentiment, 
or  association  is  attacked,  there  is  always  this 
outcry  from  the  sentimentalists  ;  a  cry  with 
which  w^e  can  sympathise,  although  it  merely 
shows  that  the  sentimentalists  are  incapable  of 
forming  a  sane  judgment  in  the  matter.  But  it 
is  not  enough  to  destroy.  There  is  something 
better  to  be  put  in  the  place  of  all  these  musical 
sweetmeats,  something  true  to  art  and  (if  people 
would  only  believe  it)  infinitely  more  capable 
of  serving  as  a  vehicle  for  solemn  and  tender 
associations. 

There  are  two  ways,  and  two  ways  only,  out  of 
a  state  of  affairs  like  this — to  go  forward  or  to 
go  back.  If  that  union  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
that  marriage  still  holds  good,  if  its  tie  is  still 
undissolved,  the  choice  is  open  to  us.  But  the 
choice  is  not  open  to  us.  We  cannot  go  for- 
ward ;  and  there  is  nothing  in  the  development 
of  modern  music  that  is  in  the  least  suitable  for 

[   261   ] 


THE  TWO 

the  expression  of  religion.  Its  modern  develop- 
ment is  on  lines  entirely  dissociated  from  religious 
ideas.  By  merely  technical  effects  you  can  always 
produce  a  sort  of  religious  atmosphere  ;  a  few 
chords  on  an  organ  in  a  theatre  will  do  it ;  but 
that  is  the  merely  theatrical  and  external  associa- 
tion of  ideas  ;  it  is  not  the  deep  quality  that  in- 
formed the  Gregorian  music,  the  music  of  Bach 
and  the  German  Reformation,  and  the  music  of 
the  old  English  church  with  the  really  religious 
spirit.  That  is  hopelessly  and  utterly  beyond  the 
reach  of  modern  music  ;  and  my  own  explanation, 
which  no  one  need  accept  against  his  own  obser- 
vation or  experience,  is  that  music  has  developed 
and  religion  has  not  ;  that  music  is  a  living  thing 
and  religion  in  our  world  a  dying  thing. 

Ill 

Well,  then,  if  we  cannot  go  forward,  there 
remains  the  other  alternative,  to  go  back.  The 
forward  movement  has  been  tried,  but  unsuccess- 
fully. Modern  music  has  lived  only  in  the  romantic 
school,  and  has  developed  only  in  song,  opera, 
and  symphony.  Church  music  has  not  developed 
any  more  than  religious  ceremonial  has  developed. 
We  should  be  shocked  if  the  modern  arts  of  stage 

[   262  ] 


WESTMINSTERS 

management  were  applied  to  the  ceremonies  of 
worship,  and  so  we  ought  to  be  shocked  when  we 
hear  Credos  and  Kyries  sung  to  strains  of  the 
bastard  French  opera  school.  The  thing,  if  it 
were  nothing  worse,  is  an  anachronism.  But  as 
we  follow  the  line  of  musical  development  back- 
wards, we  find  two  points  at  which  it  comes  to  a 
kind  of  focus  in  forms  of  dignity  and  austere 
beauty  which  are  most  suitable  for  association 
with  religious  ceremonies.  Plainsong  is,  after  all, 
the  obvious  and  perfectly  satisfactory  musical 
vehicle  for  our  Western  forms  of  worship.  It  is  at 
once  so  bare  and  so  beautiful,  so  restrained  and 
austere,  that  it  obtrudes  nothing,  but  is  capable  of 
receiving  everything.  But  one  other  kind  of  music, 
far  different  in  scope  but  springing  directly  from 
plainsong,  is  also  perfectly  adapted  for  the  more 
magnificent  commemorative  acts  of  worship — I 
mean  the  German  chorale.  That  is  the  most  perfect 
kind  of  music  that  has  ever  been  devised  for 
what  we  call  congregational  performance — that  is 
to  say,  a  service  in  which  the  people  themselves 
take  part.  Its  descendant  in  England  was  the 
old  English  psalm  or  hymn-tune  ;  there  is  in  our 
collection  of  these  a  real  treasure  of  religious 
music.  But  the  treasure  is  mixed  up  witn  an 
infinite  amount  of  dross  ;  the  bad  tunes  are  pre- 

[    263   ] 


THE  TWO 

ferred  to  the  good  one,  and  popularity  and  un- 
educated taste  are  allowed  to  rule  and  ruin  the 
general  effect. 

You  see,  then,  that  it  amounts  to  this,  that  the 
taste,  the  universal  taste  that  governs  the  asso- 
ciation of  music  with  religion  is  thoroughly  bad. 
People  have  ugly  and  badly  performed  music  in 
their  churches  and  chapels  because,  their  taste 
being  uneducated,  they  like  ugly  and  badly 
performed  things,  just  as  the  artisan  would 
prefer  to  decorate  the  wall  of  his  room  with  a 
coloured  illustration  from  a  Christmas  number 
than  with  a  drawing  by  Blake.  Taste  in  other 
departments  of  music,  as  we  have  seen,  is  being 
educated  and  improved  ;  is  it  really  being  edu- 
cated and  improved  in  the  music  associated 
with  the  church  ?  I  think  not.  Vulgarity  is 
more  rampant  there  than  anywhere  else  ;  music 
is  drifting  away  from  religion,  spreading  its 
wings  in  other  directions,  and  leaving  what  was 
once  its  twin  soul  comfortless  and  deserted.  I  do 
not  think  there  is  any  real  remedy  ;  and  those  of 
us  who  are  interested  in  the  association  of  music 
and  religion  will  do  well  to  realise  that  in  its 
modern  development  music  has  nothing  in 
sympathy  with  religion,  and  that  for  a  suitable 
and  dignified  expression  of  religion  in  music  we 

[   264  ] 


WESTMINSTERS 

must  go  back  to  the  period  when  these  two  were 
all  in  all  to  each  other  and  found  in  each  other 
the  reflection  of  all  that  was  best  in  themselves. 


IV 

The  age  and  youth  of  music  can  be  studied  to 
great  advantage  in  the  two  temples  of  religion 
that  stand  within  a  stone's-throw  of  each  other 
at  Westminster.  In  the  hoary  Abbey,  crowded 
with  the  history  of  England  and  reeking  with  the 
dust  of  dead  things,  is  heard  the  last  and  most 
modern  development  of  religious  music,  the  dry, 
gentlemanly,  scholarly  music  of  the  gentlemanly 
and  scholarly  Anglican  Church.  And  a  little  way 
down  the  street,  surrounded  by  flats  and  offices, 
rises  another  building,  as  new  as  the  flats  and 
offices,  its  walls  a  monument  of  nothing  except 
the  supreme  personality  of  a  dead  cardinal  and 
the  supreme  genius  of  a  dead  architect ;  in  which 
all  that  is  most  venerable  and  ancient  in  music 
can  be  heard  and  studied  in  a  considerable 
degree  of  perfection.  It  is  one  of  my  pleasures,  in 
those  mid-hours  of  the  afternoon  which  are  apt 
to  be  otherwise  blank,  to  alternate  between  these 
two  places  ;  to  sit  sometimes  in  the  organ  lott  of 
Westminster    Abbey    and  look    down   upon   the 

[   265   ] 


THE  TWO 

venerable  and  well-endowed  building  thronged 
with  its  prosperous,  middle-class  congregation  of 
sight-seers,  and  to  sit  on  another  day  in  the  apse 
of  Westminster  Cathedral  and  look  down  the 
whole  length  of  that  mighty  nave  as  yet  unwritten 
upon  by  time  or  history,  and  furnished  only  with 
its  own  majestic  proportions  and  the  handful  of 
poor  people  who  come  for  the  music  of  Vespers 
and  the  solace  of  Benediction. 

There  can  be  no  question  about  the  religious 
contrast  between  these  two  places,  but  the 
musical  contrast  is  not  less  striking.  The  modern 
church  music  of  Westminster  Abbey— and  by 
**  modern  "  I  do  not  mean  the  music  of  to-day, 
but  the  music  of  yesterday — this  sounds  strangely 
stiff  and  old-fashioned,  with  a  certain  Georgian 
plainness  and  Georgian  symmetry,  and  a  certain 
coldness  and  inhumanity  that  leave  a  little  chill  in 
the  heart.  The  lovely  building,  the  fine  organ,  and 
the  fine  singing,  the  sense  that  the  whole  thing 
is  inextricably  bound  up  with  the  English  con- 
stitution, social  and  political,  may  compensate, 
it  is  true,  for  the  lack  of  the  highest  qualities  in 
music  ;  for  the  place  itself  is  hypnotic  and  lulls 
one  into  the  belief  that  if  people  would  but  go  to 
prayers  twice  a  day  all  would  be  well  with  Eng- 
land and  the  world. 

[   266  ] 


WESTMINSTERS 

But  at  Westminster  Cathedral  there  are  none 
of  these  aids  to  appreciation.  You  feel  at  once 
when  you  enter  those  portals  that  you  are,  in 
spite  of  the  bold  and  intelligent  effort  to  make 
this  Catholic  cathedral  really  English  in  feeling 
and  atmosphere  and  tradition,  on  foreign  ground. 
As  on  a  British  ship  all  over  the  world,  although 
you  lie  in  the  frozen  harbour  of  Archangel  or  on 
the  burning  waters  of  the  Caribbean,  you  feel 
that  you  are  on  British  territory  ;  so  in  any 
Catholic  church,  in  whatever  country,  the 
Protestant  cannot  escape  the  feeling  that  he  is  on 
Roman  territory,  just  as  the  true  Catholic  feels 
when  he  steps  within  the  doors  of  a  church,  that 
he  is  treading  the  soil  of  a  vaster  country  than 
can  be  claimed  by  any  nationality — the  country 
of  the  Church,  the  spiritual  world.  Sometimes,  it 
is  true,  in  Westminster  Cathedral  one  may  feel, 
when  some  great  pageant  is  in  progress,  that 
one  is  taking  a  peep  into  the  pages  of  English 
history  ;  but  the  Reformation  is  too  strong  for 
us,  the  effect  does  not  last,  it  is  not  the  England 
that  we  know  ;  and  between  the  English  gentle- 
man, educated  in  a  public  school  and  at  a 
University,  sitting  in  his  white  surplice  and  hood, 
and  remaining  much  more  an  Englishman  and  a 
gentleman  than  anything  else — between  him  and 

[   267   ] 


THE  TWO 

the  Catholic  priest  with  his  downcast  eyes,  his' 
strange  mediaeval  garments,  and  his  dull  mumble 
or  strident  intonation  of  Latin,  there  is  as  much 
difference  as  between  the  noble  scholarly  sim- 
plicity of  the  English  Prayer  Book  and  the 
elaborate  mosaic  of  Latin  fragments  that  make 
up  the  Gradual  and  Missal.  In  his  carved  stall 
the  Anglican  canon  still  retains  his  own  private 
personality  ;  he  is  a  part  of  English  society,  and 
the  emoluments  of  his  stall  are  the  equivalent  of 
many  acres  of  English  soil.  But  the  Catholic 
priest  represents  nothing  but  his  church  and  his 
office  ;  when  he  lays  aside  his  embroidered  cope 
or  dalmatic  or  chasuble,  when  he  leaves  the 
mystic  precincts  of  the  altar,  he  becomes,  from 
an  English  social  point  of  view,  nobody  at  all. 
He  may  be  stupid  and  ignorant,  or  wise  and 
learned,  he  may  be  boorish  or  gentle — it  is  all 
one  ;  within  the  sanctuary  he  is  but  a  voice  and 
an  instrument,  without  it,  in  England  to-day,  he 
is  nothing  but  himself. 

When  we  come  to  the  music  itself  we  come  to 
another  startling  set  of  contrasts;  The  music  at 
the  Abbey  is  helped  into  a  visual  prominence  ; 
there  are  the  great  organ  cases  clinging  to  the 
triforium  on  either  side  ;  there  are  the  ranks  of 
choristers  robed  in  white  and  scarlet  in  the  most 

[   268  ] 


WESTMINSTERS 

prominent  place  in  the  building  ;  a  seat  in  the 
Abbey  is  considered  good  in  proportion  to  the 
view  it  affords  of  the  singers  and  the  clergy.  But 
in  the  Cathedral  the  choir  and  organ  are  alike 
invisible,  hidden  behind  the  greater  glories  of  the 
sanctuary  and  the  altar;  it  does  not  matter  where 
you  sit,  you  can  see  nothing  of  the  music,  you  can 
only  hear  it,  and  you  see  nothing  of  the  choir 
except  at  their  entrance  and  departure  when  in 
couples  they  make  their  genuflection  to  the  High 
Altar  and  their  ceremonial  bows  to  one  another. 
After  that  they  are  swallowed  up  in  the  gloom  of 
the  apse  and  become  as  impersonal  as  the  music 
itself. 

And  yet  another  contrast.  In  the  Abbey  at  its 
very  best  you  feel  that  it  is  not  the  music  alone 
that  you  are  listening  to  ;  but  it  is  music  deeply 
associated  with  two  other  senses,  the  sense  of 
literature  and  the  sense  of  personal  religion  in 
the  Protestant  meaning  of  the  word.  To  hear 
Wesley's  '* Ascribe  unto  the  Lord"  sung  there 
on  a  winter  afternoon  is  more  than  to  hear  fine 
music  ;  the  sense  of  literature  is  also  Battered, 
the  memory  of  great  words  and  great  phrases 
is  awakened  ;  associations  inseparable  from  the 
Protestant  education  are  stirred.  But  at  the 
Cathedral,     when     the    music    of    Palestrina    or 

L  269  J 


THE  TWO 

Vittoria  is  flowing  out,  or  some  of  those  incom- 
parable polyphonic  webs  of  the  mediaeval  Spanish 
school  are  being  woven,  you  lose  all  sense  of 
anything  except  the  music  itself.  It  is  far  more 
modern  than  the  most  modern  religious  music  ; 
and  far  more  Pagan  than  the  earliest  secular 
music  ;  it  often  seems  to  me  like  the  pure  ele- 
mental sound  of  voices,  like  the  crying  of  fauns 
in  a  forest.  But  above  all  it  is  impersonal,  and 
like  all  impersonal  things  is  as  mystical  as  you 
choose  to  make  it. 

And  if  you  take  an  intimate  part  in  the  music 
there  is  again  a  great  difference.  Up  on  the  rood 
screen  at  Westminster  with  its  lovely  proportions 
spread  before  your  eyes  you  are,  as  in  all  English 
cathedrals,  detached  from  the  actual  choral  per- 
formers ;  the  whole  thing  goes  on  automatically 
without  any  other  link  but  that  of  sound  between 
the  Magister  Chori  and  his  forces  down  below. 
It  is  an  august  position  ;  and  in  no  case  do  you, 
if  you  are  a  person  with  any  sense  of  reverence, 
feel  its  solemnity  so  deeply  as  when  you  play  the 
organ  yourself  and,  looking  down  into  the  vista 
of  chapels  and  monuments,  realise  whose  dust  it 
is  that  your  sound  waves  are  stirring.  But  to  sit 
in  the  apse  of  Westminster  Cathedral  is  to  sit 
in  a  friendly  and   intimate  association   with    the 

r   270  ] 


WESTMINSTERS 

makers  of  the  music  ;  they  are  in  a  place  apart, 
there  is  no  ceremonial  appearance  to  be  kept  up  ; 
the  director  of  the  music  can  correct  on  the  spot 
either  a  fault  of  behaviour  or  of  singing  ;  it  is 
almost  like  being  in  a  class-room  to  sit  among 
his  group  of  men  and  little  boys  singing  the 
most  difficult  and  elaborate  music  from  crabbed 
manuscript  copies.  You  may  play  the  organ,  but 
you  do  not  see  where  your  sound  is  going,  it 
escapes  into  the  vast  open  cathedral  behind  you; 
it  is  like  playing  and  singing  in  a  room  whose 
doors  are  wide  open  to  the  world. 

Of  these  two  places,  the  one  is  a  survival,  the 
other  a  revival.  The  survival  is  kept  going  in- 
definitely by  reason  of  its  mighty  endowments  ; 
but  it  is  a  formidable  thing  to  attempt  the  revival 
of  something  which  once  died  of  its  own  corrup- 
tion. That  is  why  the  work  at  Westminster 
Cathedral,  in  addition  to  its  profound  musical 
importance,  has  a  pathetic  interest  of  its  own. 
But  for  any  one  who  doubts  the  musical  health 
of  England  to-day  it  is  instructive  and  encourag- 
ing to  go  and  compare  these  two  things,  and  to 
examine  what  musically  it  is  that  a  past  age  has 
allowed  to  survive,  and  what  it  is  that  the  present 
age  is  attempting  to  revive. 

L   271    ] 


DEBUSSY 


S 


DEBUSSY 

IT  is  most  important  that  those  who  care  for 
music  as  a  Hving  art  should  come  to  their 
critical  bearings  about  Debussy.  He  is  a 
discoverer  ;  he  has  wandered  into  a  new  world  of 
tonality  and  what  for  want  of  a  better  term  we 
must  call  musical  colour  ;  he  speaks  to  us  in  a  new 
language,  which  we  are  obliged  to  learn  before  we 
can  form  any  judgment  of  his  work  ;  in  a  word,  he 
is  an  artist  with  a  new  technique,  and  with  at  least 
some  degree  of  inspiration.  What  does  he  say 
in  this  new  language  ?  What  does  he  discover 
in  his  new  world?  What  does  his  inspiration 
reveal  ? 

A  really  deep  curiosity  and  interest  in  Debussy 
date  with  most  of  us  from  our  first  hearing  of 
r Apres-midi  d'lin  Faioi^  that  strange,  remote 
piece  of  loveliness  in  which,  like  ethereal  har- 
monics sounding  high  above  a  deep  note,  an  ex- 
quisite artistic  essence  is  derived  from  a  primitive 
and  elemental  idea.  The  reedy,  bubbling"  notes  of 
the  flute,  the  stringent,  murmurous  tones  of  the 
'cellos  and  violas,  the  strange  scale,  the  unquiet 

[   275    ] 


DEBUSSY 

intervals,  the  melancholy,  burdened  cadences,  the 
languors  and  insidious  melodies  that  steal  from 
among  the  buzzing  harmony — what  are  they  but 
reflections  in  sound,  in  etherealised,  poetic  sound, 
of  the  sultriness  of  a  windless  afternoon,  of  the 
drowsy  stirring  of  the  pagan  and  animal  forces, 
the  peace  and  the  terror  that  lurk  together  in  the 
still,  sun-baked  landscape  of  the  classical  world  ? 
This  is  simply  a  form  of  musical  hypnotics  which,  if 
we  surrender  ourselves  to  it,  will  faithfully  re-create 
in  us  the  mood  of  the  composer.  And  it  may  be 
taken  as  typical  of  the  inspiration  of  Debussy's 
music  ;  it  is  remote  from  intellectual  speculations, 
philosophic  ideas,  mental  agonies  or  conflicts;  it 
is  founded  on  primitive  matter,  primitive  sensa- 
tion ;  it  is  an  harmonic  resultant  or  overtone 
of  these.  One  may  extend  the  metaphor,  and 
say  that  all  his  music  is  written  in  harmonics, 
on  the  stopped  and  touched  springs  of  emotion 
— ^hardly  ever  are  the  natural,  open  notes  heard. 
And  though  the  harmonics  are  very  high  and 
ethereal,  there  is  never  any  doubt  whence  they 
are  derived  ;  the  sensual,  the  niaterial,  the  funda- 
mental aspects  of  human  nature  are  the  pools 
from  which  these  misty  clouds  are  drawn,  to  float 
away  and  melt  into  the  hot  distance  of  desert 
skies. 

[  276  ] 


DEBUSSY 

What  is  new  is,  or  should  be,  always  interest- 
ing, and  one  always  approaehes  Debussy  with 
curiosity  and  expectation,  with  open  ear  and  mind. 
But  one  is  not  always  rewarded.  In  almost  all 
these  songs  and  pianoforte  pieces  one  goes  through 
the  same  process  :  one  is  interested  at  first,  one 
is  bewitched  by  sudden  moments  of  unfamiliar 
beauty,  and  finally  one  is  too  often  frankly  bored, 
losing  interest  as  soon  as  the  strange  flavour  of 
the  new  fruit  has  been  tasted.  For  that  is  the  risk 
run  by  a  composer  whose  appeal  is  chiefly  to  the 
surface  nerves  and  sensations  ;  he  stimulates  the 
appetite  for  more  sensation,  more  variety,  and  too 
often  he  is  unable  to  gratify  the  appetite  he  has 
aroused.  Sometimes  you  feel  as  though  he  were 
experimenting  on  you,  trying  how  much  you  will 
stand  of  a  certain  reiterated  effect,  and  as  though, 
having  made  a  note  of  your  symptoms,  he  then 
passes  on  to  exhibit  and  test  a  new  device  in  the 
same  way.  Of  course  that  is  not  true  ;  Debussy  is 
a  serious  musician,  with  an  extremely  high  tech- 
nical grasp  of  his  art ;  he  knows  perfectly  well 
what  he  is  doing,  and  what  effect  he  is  trying  for. 
His  experiments  are  based  on  experience  ;  his 
curiosity  is  the  result  of  profound  knowledge  ;  his 
dissonances  and  harsh  effects  are  founded  on  a  very 
deep  sense  of  beauty.  He  is  deliberate  in  all  his 

I    277    1 


DEBUSSY 

nonconformity,  and  there  is  that  deadly  logic  be- 
hind his  apparent  waywardness  that  makes  modern 
French  art  the  technical  despair  of  the  English 
mind.  And  yet  he  constantly  fails  to  transmit  his 
sense  of  beauty,  constantly  fails  to  convince  us 
about  that  new  world  he  has  discovered — the  new 
world  of  V Apres-midi  d'un  Faun,  True,  he  has 
brought  back  pearls  and  precious  stuffs,  strange 
gums  and  spices  and  foreignly  wrought  treasures 
as  a  proof  that  he  has  been  there  ;  but  has  he  kept 
a  chart  ?  Does  he  know  the  way  back  ?  Often,  sit- 
ting with  tortured  ears,  journeying  across  what 
seems  a  mere  desert  waste  of  meaningless  disson- 
ance, one  wonders  about  that ;  one  has  misgivings 
that  not  the  audience  only  have  lost  their  musical 
bearings  but  the  composer  also,  and  it  is  in 
moments  like  these  that  curiosity  is  apt  to  turn  to 
resentment. 

Such  misgivings  are  unprofitable.  Like  Berlioz 
in  his  day,  Debussy  has  made  an  addition  to  the 
resources  of  the  musical  composer  that  has  an 
importance  quite  independent  of  the  actual  merit 
of  any  of  his  individual  works.  He  has  done  that 
most  difficult  thing — he  has  cleared  his  mind  of 
the  conventional  idiom  and  the  conventional  tonal- 
ity, and  gone  straight  back  to  the  beginning  of 
things,  to  the  musical  scale  itself,  and  practically 

,  [  278  1 


DE'BUSSY 

rearranged  that.  Our  major  and  minor  keys,  our 
tonic  and  dominant  harmonics,  arc  not  the  struc- 
tural skeletons  on  which  his  music  is  built.    He 
writes  in  modes  rather  than  in  keys;  he  has  gone 
back  to  the  old  scales,  which  were  used  before 
the  science  of  harmony  had  been  developed,  and 
he  has  built  upon  them  a  tonal  structure  in  which 
all  the  resources  of  modern  harmony  are  applied 
to  these  old  scales.  One  cannot  really  understand 
his  music  unless  one  makes  an  effort  to  forget 
the  modern  scale  and  the  modern  key,  and  listen 
with  an  ear  unprejudiced  by  those  powerful  tonal 
advocates,  the  tonic  and  dominant  of  a  major  or 
minor  key.   That  is  the  scientific  explanation  of 
the  strange  effect  produced  by  the  music  of  De- 
bussy, and  still  more  of  Ravel,  and  all  the  modern 
French  school.  In  spite  of  the  beauty  of  much  of 
the  music  that  has   been  produced   in   this   new 
tonality,  it  remains  yet  in  a  purely  experimental 
stage;  if  it  really  develops  we  shall  probably  find 
that  our  present  scale  of  twelve   semitones   will 
not  be  enough,  and  we  shall  probably  have  in- 
struments  constructed,   as  some  organs  were  at 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  with  additional 
quarter  tones  in  various  parts  of  the  scale.    But 
the  difficulty  in  the  way  of  a  musical  revolution 
of  that  kind,  even  if  we  are  sure  that  it  is  desir- 

[    279   1 


I>EBUSSY 

able,  is  that  all  the  new  music  would  be  fatally  at 
war  with  the  old,  which  would  become  coarse 
and  intolerable  to  ears  really  trained  in  the 
familiar  combination  of  quarter  tones.  And  a 
musical  revolution  that  would  make  Bach, 
Beethoven,  and  Wagner  intolerable  would  be 
hard  to  accomplish. 

But  Debussy,  having*  given  us  a  new  (or,  if 
you  like,  restored  an  old)  tonality,  has  an  abso- 
lute claim  on  our  respect  and  attention.  For  good 
or  ill,  he  has  deflected  the  compasses  of  all  the 
younger  school  of  navigators  in  the  musical  art, 
and  his  influence  is  bound  to  be  great — greater, 
no  doubt,  than  his  individual  achievement;  and 
others  will  carry  the  possibilities  of  this  new 
tonality  farther  than  he  will  carry  them,  and  so 
reap  where  he  has  sown.  Future  ages  may  not 
rank  Debussy  with  the  great  composers,  but  they 
cannot  deny  that  he  is  a  great  innovator,  and  he 
is  to  be  saluted  for  that ;  it  goes  far  to  excuse 
those  long  periods  of  downright  ugliness  in  some 
of  his  pianoforte  works,  or  such  an  acoustic 
horror  as  the  first  movement  of  his  string  quartet. 
The  secret  of  this  new  tonality  has  not  yet  been 
thoroughly  plumbed.  Many  of  its  harmonic 
effects  depend  entirely  on  the  thnbre  of  the  in- 
struments   on   which    they    are  played,   and    are 

[   280  ] 


DE'BUSSY 

often  based  on  the  subtle  harmonic  effects  of 
stringed  instruments  in  combination  ;  you  mii^ht 
transpose  many  of  Debussy's  really  beautiful 
passages  from  strings  to  wood-wind  or  keyed 
instruments,  and  produce  mere  ugliness  or  caco- 
phony. That  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that 
we  are  outgrowing  the  old  scale,  the  old  octave 
on  which  the  music  of  the  last  two  hundred  years 
has  been  founded,  and  feeling  our  way  into  a  new 
scale,  a  new  tonality,  which  the  perfection  of 
modern  keyed  instruments  has  hitherto  pre- 
vented us  from  cultivating.  For  it  is  almost 
certain  that  if  all  pianos,  organs,  and  similar 
instruments  in  which  every  note  of  the  scale  has 
a  fixed  dynamic  relation  to  every  other  note  were 
to  be  silenced  for  ten  years,  we  should  by  that 
time  have  developed  an  entirely  new  scale  and 
tonality  in  which  all  our  musical  imaginings 
would  be  cast.  Debussy  is  the  chief  of  modern 
composers  who  have  anticipated  this  develop- 
ment; and  for  that  reason,  if  for  no  other,  his 
music  would  be  interesting. 

But  it  has  many  other  claims.  It  helps  to 
make  obsolete  many  forms  which  should  have 
been  obsolete  long  ago — forms  in  which  the  great 
composers  of  the  past  wrote  great  music,  but  in 
which   no   modern   composer   can   write   any  but 

L  281  J 


DE'BUSSY 

feeble  music.  It  makes  it  a  little  more  absurd  for 
us  to  go  on  flogging  those  dead  donkeys,  the 
oratorio  and  cantata ;  it  makes  experiment  respect- 
able, and  even  fashionable,  where  yesterday  it  was 
deemed  disgraceful.  It  helps  in  the  real  apprecia- 
tion of  the  great  composers  of  the  past,  and  will 
help  to  send  us  back  to  Bach  for  our  fugues, 
Handel  for  our  oratorios  (if  we  really  want  ora- 
torios), Schumann  for  our  romance,  Brahms  for 
our  musical  philosophy  ;  it  will  help  us  to  dis- 
criminate between  what  was  and  what  was  not 
inspired  in  the  works  of  the  great,  instead  of 
accepting  everything  as  pure  gospel  which  bears 
the  name  of  Mozart,  Beethoven,  Rameau,  Bach, 
Palestrina.  It  will  do  this  because,  whatever 
its  faults  and  failures,  it  appeals  boldly  on  the 
single  ground  of  beauty,  and  not  of  erudition, 
imitation,  or  conservatism.  It  claims  every 
licence,  and  stands  or  falls  by  its  justification 
of  that  licence.  Its  failure  or  success  is  singu- 
larly definite  and  complete  ;  it  is  either  beautiful 
or  abominable.  Two-thirds  of  the  music  of 
Debussy  that  I  have  heard  is  abominable  to 
my  ear ;  but  the  remainder  is  so  entirely,  so 
certainly,  and  so  strangely  beautiful  as  to  con- 
vince me  that  the  unpleasing  part,  although  the 
greater  in  quantity,  is  infinitely  the  less  impor- 

[   282   ] 


DEBUSSY 

tant,  and  is  to  be  regarded  as  studio  work 
which  carries  the  mark  of  the  master's  manner 
and  eccentricity,  but  not  of  his  ultimate  and 
abiding  personality. 


[   283   J 


POSTSCRIPT 

THE  contents  of  this  volume,  like  those  of 
its  companion  Mastei'siiigcrs^  represent 
the  work  of  some  years  ;  and  most  of  the 
essays,  at  some  stage  or  other  of  their  evolution, 
have  made  a  preliminary  appearance,  while 
all  have  been  worked  over  and  to  some  extent 
rewritten  before  taking  their  final  form.  The 
greater  part  of  the  first  chapter  appeared  serially 
in  The  Sahtrday  Review ^  where  also  appeared 
portions  of  the  chapters  entitled  respectively 
^^The  Art  of  the  Conductor"  and  ^^  Debussy. " 
^'  Music  in  Modern  Life "  appeared  in  The 
English  Review^  and  ^'The  Musician  as  Com- 
poser" in  The  Fortnightly  Review^  and  '^The 
Old  Aoe  of  Richard  Wao-ner  "  in  The  En<rlish- 

&  o  o 

woman.  The  substance  of  chapters  ii.,  in.,  iv. 
and  V.  formed  part  of  a  course  of  University 
Extension  Lectures  delivered  in  Liverpool  ; 
*^The  Music  of  the  Salon"  was,  practically  as 
it  stands,  delivered  as  an  address  at  the  Hay- 
market  Theatre  in  connection  with  the  Caiiseries 

[   285   ] 


l>OSTSCRI'PT 

du  Jetidi,     I   make  my  acknowledgments  to  the 
various  editors  and  authorities  concerned. 

Music  is  a  very  difficult  and  baffling"  thing  to 
write  about,  and  I  am  far  from  looking  with 
unmingled  satisfaction  on  the  contents  of  this 
volume.  Excuse  for  imperfection  lies  in  the 
extreme  scarcity  of  literature,  either  good  or 
bad,  which  attempts  to  deal  with  music  at  once 
humanly  and  critically. 

April y  191 1. 


(j.H.f^^Ca 


